Schools of the 21st century go through essential changes – from a place where children were prepared to pass their final exams and enter higher educational establishments schools have become a place where real-world problems are solved. Students often express a preference for doing rather than listening. In this century :• learning has risen to the level of authenticity when it asks students to work actively with abstract concepts, facts, and formulae inside a realistic and highly social context • critical thinking has become a necessity in the learning process• students must know how to use a variety of resources• collaboration has become an integral part of learning•.Therefore it is essential to prepare educators and students for dealing with this juvenile problem. The project “Healthy Minds for Healthy Europe” will focus on creating support teams at school in cooperation with health care institutions. It is very important to share this experience among European teachers and health care workers as this will be a new method at schools and will need support.The main objectives of the project are : • to improve the capacity of the partner school staff based on the needs of the 21st century• to identify and analyze good practices of the partner schools in the field of peer consulting• to create a young experts group and educate them to help their peers suffering from addiction• in cooperation with health care institutions to work out a programme “ How to Fight Different Addictions at School ” • to pilot the created courses in all the participating schools • to strengthen mutual understanding among European nations through getting to know the cultures of the participating countries. Each school has its strengths and best practices to share with the partners. The project will work in 2 directions – sharing good practices and creating innovative methods how to teach pupils help their peers return to healthy life style. Each school will carry out a research on pupil’s addiction at their school and create a support group consisting of teachers and students. There will be 5 training/ learning/teaching activities:• How to work in a team successfully• How to diminish addiction to cell phones and video games and replace them with more suitable activities• How to limit pupils’ time spent in social networks• How to teach peers eat healthily• How to persuade peers to quit smoking Teachers and health care workers will work together to create a course “How to Fight Different Addictions at School. The created course will be piloted by students and improved in case of need. The created programme and success stories of the work done will be put on the project web page. Besides a booklet "Exercises on Elimination of Addictions" will be created and published. Besides the participants will have improved their skills in the English language and got an insight in the native languages of the partner schools while working in an e-twinning project which will be implemented alongside with the Erasmus+ project. Different e-twininning and web tools will be used.
In the schools of the 21st century, there has been a significant change - from the place where students were trained for final examinations and admission to higher education institutions, schools have become a place where problems in the real world are addressed. In this century: • Learning requires students to actively work with abstract concepts, facts and formulas in a real and highly social context. • Critical thinking has become a necessity in the learning process • Students must be able to use different resources • Cooperation has become an integral part of learning. It is therefore important to train teachers and pupils to address nowadays teenage issues. The project "Healthy Minds for Healthy Europe" focused on implementing a range of interventions in partnership with healthcare institutions to tackle various addiction problems at schools. It is very important for teachers and healthcare professionals in different European countries to share their experience in dealing with these problems. Each country has its own practices and methods of trying to prevent youngsters to become addicted to bad habits. The main objectives of the project were to: • Improve the capacity of partner school staff based on the needs of the 21st century • Identify and analyze the situation with addictions in partner countries • Share success stories in the field of addictions in n each school • In co-operation with healthcare institutions, develop course program and lesson and activity plans "How to prevent different types of addiction at schools" • Try out the created lesson and activity plans in partner schools. • Strengthen mutual understanding between the peoples of Europe by getting to know the cultures of the partner countries. The project worked in several directions: 1) studying the situation in all partner schools and countries concerning different types of addiction; 2) getting to know good practice on fighting addictions; 3) creating a study programme, lesson and activity plans for preventing various addictions and promoting a healthy lifestyle. 4) organizing seminars and simulation games on various topics on fighting addiction: • How to work successfully in a team • How to reduce addiction to mobile phones and video games and replace them with more appropriate activities • How to limit the time spent on social networks • How to learn to eat healthily • How to convince peers to quit smoking • How to restrict the use of alcohol and drugs among young people. 5) writing success stories on fighting with addictions. Teachers and healthcare workers worked together to create a study program, lesson and activity plans "How to prevent different types of addiction at schools". During the simulation games, students had to play different roles – the one of a psychologist and an addict, trying to persuade the addicts to turn to a healthy lifestyle. All the materials created during the project were posted on the project website www.theserasmus.wordpress.com and the brochure "How to Fight Addictions at School”. During the project, 2 project meetings and 3 teaching/learning activities took place as well as 3 teacher teaching / learning activities. During the first project meeting, project coordinators in Latvia elaborated a plan for implementation of the objectives set out in the project, divided the tasks, discussed result dissemination activities and project finance issues. In the second project meeting in Greece, a seminar was held where the progress of the project and the created materials were analyzed, the planned result dissemination activities in each school and the sustainability of the project were discussed as well. The final project report and the publication of the brochure were also analyzed.