Music and Poetry to Empower Teenagers’ Resilience at School Erasmus Project

Project Title

Music and Poetry to Empower Teenagers’ Resilience at School

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Pedagogy and didactics; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

Adversity is a fact of life. Everyone, sooner or later, will have to face difficult situations or failure and will have to accept things outside his control. This can be particularly challenging for adolescents, which are experiencing a period of significant physical, emotional and psychological change due to the transition from childhood to young adulthood. During these years, adolescents are faced with numerous social, emotional and moral challenges, which they often find hard to negotiate, given that they are still learning how to manage strong emotions and their brains are in a period of significant development. The aim of MusE is to provide to teenagers the necessary skills and tools to overcome the hardships life puts them through, making them develop resilience. Adolescence is a time in which substantial physiological changes are occurring in parallel with changing environments and opportunities. These changes can not only affect healthy development but also impact the individual’s psychosocial development. As a result, adolescence is the transition period that offers an unique opportunity to influence health-related behaviours in youth, that’s why teenagers have been chosen as target group of the project. Resilience can be enhanced by understanding which aspects of our life we can control, modify and grow with, and is affected by the quality of interactions within the family, school, and other social environments. The project foresees the use of an innovative methodology, based on the use of music as a support to the development of resilience, due to its ability to evoke, identify and process emotions and due to the fact that it is a common phenomenon that crosses all borders of nationality, race and culture.

OBJECTIVES
The aim of the project is to promote the development of some of the factors that make a person resilient, such as positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, and the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback. More specifically, the teenagers involved in the project will develop the following traits:
– emotional awareness and the ability to regulate their emotions
– control over their impulses
– an optimistic mindset
– flexible and accurate thinking
– empathy towards others
– self-efficacy
– a willingness to seek help when needed.
The students will experience a different learning method, that will focus on personal understanding and sharing through music. The MusE project, in fact, has its main output in the production of a Pop Symphonic Poem on the topic of adolescence, in which the lyrics will be composed by the students themselves. They will be involved in engaging and stimulating activities that will give them the opportunity to get in touch with people coming from different countries.

ACTIVITIES
The participants will be engaged in activities based on collaboration and mutual help, as a way of enhancing all the skills and competences resilience consist in. The classroom will become an inclusive environment in which everyone is invited to participate and share his feelings and experiences. Brainstorming sessions will be organised to make them reflect on the topic of resilience. The project envisages the use of a Web App to enhance communication and exchange between the students of the different countries. They will have to answer to the surveys submitted through the App and their collaboration will result in the creation of a lyrical poem that addresses the topic of resilience from a transnational perspective.

PARTICIPANTS
The project will engage all the adolescent students of the partners schools. Special attention will be given to vulnerable individuals, for example the ones who are experiencing economic hardship or that have behavioural, emotional, family or socialisation problems, the ones that are facing more serious challenges like family breakdown, family illness or death, or bullying, as well as the ones that have learning difficulties or disabilities, or simply more anxious personalities.

METHODOLOGY
The methodology will be based on the use of music to promote activities aimed at developing resilience. In particular it will use some approaches and strategies like:
– cooperative learning
– classroom discussion
– brainstorming activities
– use of technology to promote transcultural and transnational communication.

IMPACT AND LONG TERM BENEFIT
The project will have an impact on the educational system, because it will allow the participation of schools in Erasmus+ projects that otherwise would not have had the opportunity. The project will also establish a long-term collaboration between the partnership members and, furthermore, other countries can benefit from and use its tools and methodologies, so it can be a useful contribution that can be implemented in different contexts and fields of study.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 339927 Eur

Project Coordinator

Associazione Rosso Arancio & Country: IT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE
• OZEL KUMLUCA SINAV EGITIM KURUMU INSAAT TICARET LIMITED SIRKETI
• Demetra Special Purpose Vehicle srls
• NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND GALWAY
• Escola Secundária Alves Martins
• LICEUL TEHNOLOGIC TICLENI
• Comunità Autogestita Costiera della Nazionalità Italiana