Living in different countries and being a European citizens an the same time can be very complex and confusing. Although children in all countries are faced with similar problems in their growing ups, depending on tradition and way of life of their country, they can face many diversities in their civil life. Project Guide for growing up in Europe is directed in exploring such diversities, and problems children can face in everyday life as european citizens. The first obstacle they face is lack of social and emotional skills and for us, school professionals, it is challenging to find effective methods to help them develop it. Some of those methods are creative drama noninvasive and amusing ways to help children in their journey towards adulthood. Social and emotional intelligence is the foundation of a happy and productive life and social and emotional skills are a prerequisite for successful life. In the world where direct interpersonal communication is becoming less and less common, the school must become a place where students can learn and develop communication skills and adapt appropriate social behavior. Developing character and human virtues is also one of our goals because if we manage to teach them to be a good people, they can become responsible, tolerant, emphatic, friendly citizen. Civic education is an important part in our project because we think that understanding society in which they live and its functioning is as important as learning civil (children) rights. Additional value will be comparison of civic rules and children rights in different european countries. In our project we will include around 100-150 students of every school. Through different methods and techniques, e.g. mediation techniques or with the help of a feelings&emotions lexicon, the children can develop critical thinking, strengthen their attitudes and become able to overcome many problems with which they are facing in everyday life, such as difficulties in self-acceptance, peer acceptance (bullying), unhappy home situations or economic insecurity. Creative drama may include acting, movement, scriptwriting, improvisational exercises, technical theater and role playing and can be integrated throughout the curriculum. The schooling can be more successful if children are more creative and expressive but also aware of their position in school and society, fighting against early leaving school. Therefore, a school mediation club will be established in all schools towards the end of the project.
Our project was designed to function as a guide for students growing up in Europe and is directed to exploring the diversities and problems children can face in everyday life as European citizens. In regard to this aim, throughout the course of the project our students have been working on the following fields: The first obstacle students face is lack of social and emotional skills and for us, school professionals, it is challenging to find effective methods to help them develop it. Some of those methods are creative drama, non-invasive and amusing ways to help children in their journey towards adulthood. Social and emotional intelligence is the foundation of a happy and productive life and social and emotional skills are a prerequisite for successful life. In the world where direct interpersonal communication is becoming less and less common, the school must become a place where students can learn and develop communication skills and adapt appropriate social behaviour. Developing character and human virtues is also one of our goals because if we manage to teach them to be a good people, they can become responsible, tolerant, emphatic, friendly citizen. Civic education is an important part in our project because we think that understanding society in which they live and its functioning is as important as learning civil (children) rights. Additional value will be comparison of civic rules and children rights in different European countries. In our project we included around 100 students of every school. Through different methods and techniques, e.g. mediation techniques or with the help of a feelings&emotions lexicon, the children developed critical thinking, strengthened their attitudes and became able to overcome many problems which they are facing in everyday life, such as difficulties in self-acceptance, peer acceptance (bullying), unhappy home situations or economic insecurity. Creative drama included acting, movement, scriptwriting, improvisational exercises, technical theater and role playing and can be integrated throughout the curriculum. Schooling can be more successful if children are more creative and expressive but also aware of their position in school and society, fighting against early leaving school. At the end of the project, the plan was to establish a mediation club at every school, in order to provide students and schools an infrastructure to continually work on the topics worked on throughout the project, such as peer collaboration, creating a feeling of safety, acceptance and respect for one another at school, practising childrens' rights and being pro-active individuals at their schools and in their individual lives. Unfortunately, due to covid reasons, the meeting in Germany where the mediation workshop was supposed to take place, had to be cancelled. Instead, the schools tried their best to work on the principles of school mediation with the students online. In order to keep up collaboration between the students of our partner schools and to improve students abilities necessary for online learning, some schools tried to stay in connection through online games and tasks that were carried out via the twinspace of the project. The twinspace was rewarded with the National Quality Labels in some of the participating countries.