OUT OF THE BOX Ready to use classroom tools for non-violent communication and creative thinking Erasmus Project

Project Title

OUT OF THE BOX Ready to use classroom tools for non-violent communication and creative thinking

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social dialogue; Pedagogy and didactics; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

There is no doubt that people need to be instructed in acquiring communication skills that are constructive and respectful. Being able to communicate non-violently is a skill that people do not necessarily possess. Teaching that skill to pupils from an early age on can only benefit them in the long term, moreover, various studies from Dr. Marshall Rosenberg prove that society too will reap the advantages of a population skilled in constructive communication and creative thinking.
The participating school in Belgium has found that pupils showed a lack of positive group dynamics and difficulties in handling conflicts, sharing materials, playing together and expressing what they feel and experience in a respectful way.
This has resulted in setting up this project, which involves five pre-primary and primary schools from Belgium, Lithuania, Romania, Greece and Cyprus. The aim is to create lesson plans and hands-on materials to strengthen teachers in tackling these problems, by improving their pedagogical and didactical skills in order to enable pupils to develop non-violent communication skills and skills that support logical, strategic, flexible and creative thinking.
Some partner schools had professional input and experience they want to share. Belgium feels stronger in nonviolent communication and handling difficult behaviour. Lithuania activates creative thinking by using multiple intelligences through the whole school. Together, partners feel they have insufficient knowledge, skills and training methodologies to guide our children in their development of nonviolent communication and creative thinking. Professionals will be supporting the project. Hilde Leonard is specialized in handling conflicts and positive group dynamics, Frederik De Schepper and Asta Lapėnienė focus on how teachers can apply non-traditional, flexible, innovative and new educational methods in their lessons and activities with children. The entire project is divided over two years. In the first year the focus is on non-violent communication. In the second the emphasis is put on creative thinking.
During several short-term training events, the partners will create two toolboxes: one about non-violent communication, the other about creative thinking. These physical toolboxes will consist of lesson plans, activities, games, clips, a reading list for teachers, background information etc. Each box will contain materials for four different age groups: 2.5-4 year olds, 5-7 year olds, 8-10 year olds and 11-12 year olds. These materials will have been tested in classes of all participating schools and adjusted if necessary before being disseminated.
At the same time, the physical toolboxes will also be made available to the wider international community digitally via eTwinning. In other words: the project will be accessible by any school that struggles with similar problems and that wishes to address those problems in a scientifically acceptable way by using readily available materials, that can easily be adjusted to any school’s specific context.
In order to involve all stakeholders in the field of education (i.e. (head)teachers, educators, pupils, parents, and to a lesser degree the school board and the local community), the project will be on the agenda of every staff meeting during the project years. Parents and the local community will have the opportunity to attend information sessions, so as to experience the progress of the project. This way again, useful feedback will improve the materials in both boxes. When the creative phase of the project is over, non-violent communication and creative thinking will become part of the school plan in order for it to have a sustainable impact.
The project has a special focus on parents. By involving them very concretely in the project, it is our ambition to provide them with the necessary tools to implement non-violent communication in their everyday activities and in their families. That is why a leaflet for parents will be developed.
We truly believe that doing the project and implementing the toolboxes in our everyday teaching habits will eventually allow for a genuinely creative and positive atmosphere to be developed at schools. An environment based on non-violent communication and creative thinking benefits teachers, students and parents in the sense that a school can truly become a place where pupils and teachers feel ‘at home’ and ‘at ease’.
It is every school’s ambition to have prepared its pupils to face the challenges of society, and in doing so to improve it. If we want pupils to develop into human beings who are capable of giving constructive feedback, of communicating positively and of thinking creatively, we need to equip them with the necessary tools to do so, preferably from an early age onwards. We will have succeeded when the tools from the boxes we will have created are inherent in our pupils’ behaviour. Out of the box … into the lives of open and ambitious citizens.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 88716 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vrije basisschool Wildenburg & Country: BE

Project Partners

• 16th Primary School of Rethymno Crete
• Scoala Gimnaziala “Vaskertes”
• Nipiagogio Akakiou
• Mokslo ir menu mokyklaTaskius