We propose a project based on emotional education. We have detected an increasing need to work on aspects related to the emotional development of our students.In society nowadays children are sometimes over stimulated. They receive a great deal of information from many different sources. Education is increasingly orientated at the technical and quantitative aspects of learning. The time dedicated to interpersonal relationships is less and less important in children's everyday lives.The current life and learning rhythm that our society imposes leaves aside a wide range of traditional values that used to be transmitted through social interaction, imitation of how to relate to each other and play as an irreplaceable means of learning. We are faced with models based on individuality and a gradual shifting of the family as the main generator of emotional and behavioural learning. Therefore as a school we are challenged to transmit these basic values from our daily classroom routines.As a pre-primary and primary school, we find that many of the aspects related to emotional education are worked on intensively throughout the early stages of education (ages 3 to 5) In our pre-primary classrooms there is a rich and innovative work plan that is carried out on a daily basis in an integrated way that helps students construct their personality, and identify and control their personal emotions and those of others. But, unfortunately once they begin the stage of primary education the high level of expectations and demands of our educational system drive our teachers to abruptly interrupt all this work pushing emotional education into the background.Despite the fact the curriculum acknowledges the importance of emotional aspects, in practice we are left with little or no time to fulfil our mentoring satisfactorily. Teachers lack time to relate with their students and help them develop the basic values of coexistence, empathy and respect for oneself and towards others. We aim at investigating through practice and impact on the training of our teaching staff in the different aspects related to emotional education. In this respect we are willing to develop and implement a programme that will involve the whole educational process of our students and in a way in which students cohesively and transversally can take advantage of the many opportunities offered to them on a daily basis in the school context to bring these aspects to life giving them the importance they deserve as an integral part of our educational strategies.We are aware of the fact that the expectations of the current educational programmes reduce and considerably condition the time we have to carry out the objectives that we are considering in this project. Our intention is to optimise the resources that are available to us (time, material, organisational...) in order to carry it out in a realistic and practical manner.As our ultimate goal we would like to develop a high quality global emotional education programme that will bridge the emotional gap we observe in our students in a way in which it can be extrapolated to wide and diverse school contexts and situations.We consider the collaboration with other schools as essential. It is imperative that we establish common needs in order to carry out a rich and varied working environment with a wide range of proposals, ideas thoughts and knowledge.Additionally we believe it would be interesting to develop this project from an international perspective as we consider it helpful to define a common European educational context with its values, diversity and common dilemmas. In order to seek answers it is of vital importance that we work together to respond to our needs. We must define a European emotional identity that will contribute to uniting our continent in future generations.
We had proposed a project based on Emotional Education. We had detected an increasing need to work on aspects related to the emotional development of our students. Our main aim was to investigate through practice and impact on the training of our teaching staff in the different aspects related to emotional education. In this respect we were willing to develop and implement a programme that would involve the whole educational process of our students and in a way in which students cohesively and transversally can take advantage of the many opportunities offered to them on a daily basis in the school context to bring these aspects to life giving them the importance they deserve as an integral part of our educational strategies. As the final product of our project we have developed a global emotional education programme that would bridge the emotional gap we observe in our students in a way in which it could be extrapolated to wide and diverse school contexts and situations. Four countries participated in our project, Spain, Poland, Slovakia and Italy. The schools were very different and worked with students from different age levels. All had previous experience in European Projects. One of the schools had collaborated with us in the past in another project. The main activities carried out in this project were: - Courses/Workshops about Emotional Education: Each partner carried out during the first phase of the project, one o several training courses that enabled staff members to create a common framework of knowledge regarding Emotional Education which served as the starting point from which the experimental stage of the project was developed. - Transnational Meetings (Job shadowing experiences): two teachers from each of the participating countries visited two schools in order to observe how other teachers carried out their work in the classroom and developed their daily activity. We analysed the aspects observed in relation to emotional education considering the particular socio cultural characteristics and together established a common framework of needs and characteristics. - Educational Intervention Initiatives at the same time the job-shadowing experiences were taking place, teachers in schools (with the training acquired in the first phase), elaborated educational intervention initiatives in the form of independent programmed activities to be carried out within the school timetable. - Short-term exchange with students: Learning Teaching and Training Activities: In this phase of the project teachers and students from the different participating schools shared ideas and developed common activities in which they took active part by putting into practice all the accomplished until then. Four transnational meetings were carried out in which different activities were shared: - Italy. cooperative activities and/or and games. - Slovakia. activities related to the acquisition of the necessary social abilities to express emotions in a way to avoid conflict. - Poland. role play situations that required a resolution of conflict. A debate took place in order to provide different possibilities of resolution to each situation. - Spain. communication of emotions through the use of different languages: verbal, body, gestural, artistic and musical. The drafting of a final document that collected the activities proposed throughout the project and the conclusions reached. As a result of the development of this project we have strengthened in our educational communities a better attention and greater presence of the emotional aspects within the educational process as an essential part of the comprehensive training of our students and as an enhancing factor of learning in any context or subject area. Together we have elaborated an Emotional Education Plan which has been introduced in each of the participating schools, forming a relevant part of their Educational Projects, adapted to the specific organisational and legislative nature of each school and in accordance with each national Educational System it belongs to. Furthermore, this Plan can be directly included in any educational programme only having to make the necessary contextual adaptations to suit their needs. Our Emotional Education Plan has had a positive impact on our students’ personalities and the general climate of our schools as ideal places for learning and coexistence, improving students general performance and promoting our students’ full development as persons.