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Current Status - April, 2008
There has been great interest in the Living Values in Education Program in Greece. Our association has been holding two-hour seminars in which we introduce the ALIVE association, present an introduction to the LVEP and, then, conduct LVEP activities on one particular value: October 2007 -“Freedom”, November 2007 - “Cooperation”, December 2007 - “Respect”, January 2008 - "Love" and February 2008, "Responsibility". Fortunately, we have been offered hospitality by bookshops with seminar rooms where we hold these workshops. Once our membership grows we will be able to have our own premises. Many educators in Greece are happy and willing to come to two-hour workshops because they often work long hours; we intend to hold a proper LVEP Train-the-Trainers weekend in Fall 2008 so as to offer all a deeper insight into LVEP.
A Special Project on the island of Chios
Teachers at ten nursery and primary schools are implementing LVE on the island of Chios with the leadership of Sofia Tanaini and other teachers.
Introduction – Goals:
A child who is able to communicate, express feelings and thoughts, find ways of resolving the conflicts s/he experiences, is much more free to exploit his/ her abilities, and invest his /her energy in creative goals, being at the same time more competent to get over life difficulties.
Keeping these thoughts in mind, the ten-school team started the planning of the programme. The first goal was for the teachers of the team to get to know each other and feel the group dynamics themselves with a view to setting common objectives. Then, the differences between the schools and age of students were brought up and there were various suggestions in regard with ways and activities to bring students and teachers closer. This procedure lasted for a whole year and proved to be very important, as communication and feedback invigorated teachers themselves both mentally and emotionally and contributed to the realization of our goals. In the each of the ten schools, one or two teachers are involved with LVE. We hope that in time all the teachers at each school will be involved.\
Our Goals for the Children:
to get to know themselves and the world around them in a better way and acquire certain communication skills.
to bond together, recognise that each is different, important and unique, explore advantages and disadvantages to cooperation and promote it.
to acquire self-knowledge, identify their abilities, desires, traits, appreciate themselves and get recognition from others.
to understand that getting older and changing is a process common to living creatures, but different pace-wise for each of us.
to explore similarities and differences among people of different teams, realise that differences enrich life and learn how important mutual tolerance and respect are.
to understand the importance of effective communication, get training in skills that promote true relationships, control impulse, and get used to getting in each other's position.
to learn to control impulsive reactions when under pressure and resolve differences in ways different from those of anger, aggression, and submission.
to set realistic personal goals.
to learn to evaluate their training and their progress in it.
Our common goal was to give emphasis to socialization, verbal expression, a cooperative spirit and team work. Informing and sensitising their family and close environment were first priorities. This meant that we were concerned to get the parents and community involved. Cooperation with local Authorities and organizations not only contributed to the success of the programme but also gave adults the chance to examine their own emotional life as well as that of their children.
Methods Used:
We applied the different stages of a project for the realization of the LVE programme.
As for the work in class, we used techniques of experiential learning since it focuses on children and lets them explore attitudes, values and ideas in a safe, non- threatening way, exchanging experience to their own benefit.
Such techniques were.
-brainstorming
-stream of consciousness
-mutual commitment to sticking to certain rules, contract signing
-team work
-role play
-dramatization
-artisic creation.
The approach had always a holistic, interscientific and subject-based angle, so that most sciences and abilities were taken into account.
Various activities were used, based on speech, discussion, communication and exploration. A lot of activities emphasized artistic expression, dramatization and drama games on different subjects.
The programme gave both teachers and students the chance to work with imagination, creativity and fun, to get beyond the syllabus and “learn, explore and taste”.
Evaluation
A systematic evaluation of the programme proved to be a hard procedure, on the one hand because its aims concerned mainly emotional processes and we do not have the suitable tools and sufficient education to reliably comment on the possible emotional changes on the part of the kids, and on the other, because the whole procedure was for us also, an unpredictable journey in the land of emotion and the degree to which we were involved, does not permit us to objectively evaluate what occurred. In general ,we could say that in the part of expressing and handling emotions, the change in the attitude of the children in terms of being able to talk about their feelings was obvious. And in the field of self-image, we saw “low profile” children demand more space and change the pattern of their behaviour with the rest of the children.
It is true that such programmes are hard to evaluate, since their results emerge gradually in the future. What became clear, is the necessity of such programmes that address not only the gnostic part but also their emotional world. The programme gave students the chance to ask themselves questions and have fun in an original way. They expressed their feelings, got to know each other, discussed, realised the importance of human relationships and became more competent in handling conflict and delaying gratification. The children started exploring and trusting each other, talked and expressed their preferences, emotions and difficulties they faced. They learnt to respect the rules they set. They discovered hidden abilities and grew more confident.
The local community needs initiatives that will promote new values and interests and bring up subjects to discuss and explore. In this framework, the opening of the school to society and the benefit of the impact, brings students and parents closer. Apparently, parents were the immediate recipients of their changes and emotions. In the programme, there was no bad, mediocre or good student. There was the painter, the story-teller, the actor/actress... Self-involved kids overlooked their needs for the benefit of the team. Chidren with learning difficulties surprised everyone with their host of knowledge, vocabulary and drama skills. Children's contact with emotion and its expression by means of their thoughts and desires is an issue of life-long education. However, it's now time to take a first step and realise that emotion is a prevalent element in their life, the key to both a “normal” social life and the conquest of knowledge itself. Only when we as teachers realise that emotional intelligence should have its place in our everyday learning process will children have the chance to live in a school that respects their differences and personal needs.
May 2001
"The Munting Nayon Community School in Athens, which is run by the Philippines' Association, has adopted Living Values in their curriculum. Values education already has a place in their education system, but the teachers are particularly happy with the activities that we offer and also the way we go deeper into the values for their own self-development. For the last eighteen months I have been giving training on an ad hoc basis to their teachers, but from September 1999 the principal and teachers decided that they would like me to continue values training with the teachers once a month when they have their teachers' meeting. They are very serious and enthusiastic during these sessions and have a genuine interest to go deeper into the values, what they mean personally and how they can really put them into practice in their everyday lives. There is a refreshing honesty in their desire to learn and to improve. Already we are starting to see changes in the educators themselves and I think this is already visible in the classroom. Formal evaluations have not yet been done, but I will introduce this idea during our next meeting on 28th January 2000.
TESOL Macedonia Thrace - 7th Annual Convention, 16-17 October 1999
"The title of this two-day event was "Reflections and Directions". On Saturday 16th October, George Mavroudis presented a workshop entitled "How to Create Leaders: The Challenge of Future Education". George explored the skills needed to prioritise properly what to teach and how to teach and asked the question "How do you motivate students to actively participate rather than comply with 'orders'?" He also examined those factors that foster trust in the classroom. On Sunday, as the
Living Values Education Coordinator for Greece, I presented a workshop on "Facilitating Learning, Facilitating Language" which took educators through several practical steps, and a process of self-questioning, to identify those areas of the teacher's changing role that can influence the quality of language learned by students. A lot of interest was generated. One participant is a member of the TESOL board and he later emailed to offer cooperation and a venue for future activities in
Thessaloniki. The venue was the University of Macedonia-Thrace in Thessaloniki and the event was attended by about 300 people.
TESOL Greece Mini-Convention on Sunday 3lst October l999 held at the British Council in Athens
"As the Living Values Education Coordinator I was asked to present a workshop in the multimedia section and talked about "The Influence of Technology on Life in the Classroom". I noted that as we move into the new millennium the use of computers and video in classroom teaching is no longer an opportunity but a necessity. In the workshop I showed how technology can have a positive and beneficial influence on the quality of educating our students and how to create the right attitudes towards technology in language teaching and in the creation of an active and positive learning environment.
Amongst the participants was a Montessori school teacher with her own school in Kifissia in the northern suburbs of Athens. She was so impressed by the forum and the Living Values Programme that she invited me to give a presentation in her home to a group of parents. Twenty-five people turned up at 8 pm on 19th December 1999 and we left at after midnight! The evening was lively, with 18 very enthusiastic parents who listened attentively to the presentation and then spent 90 minutes firing questions at me about values, how we can teach them to children, how we can model them, etc. As a result, we will have monthly meetings with this parent group starting in January 2000.
Living Values gets a new partner!
"Andrew Betsis publishing house in Athens has offered us a place to conduct training seminars and offered it free of charge, because we give our services free of charge. They will also do all the advertising and mailing of invitations. The following seminars were held:
30th January 2000 - Eight Steps Towards Creating Good Relationships
26th February 2000 - Education without Fear
1st April 2000 - Communication Skills: Active Listening and Conflict Resolution
22nd and 23rd April 2000 - Educator Training in Values-Based Education
TESOL Greece published my full paper in their July-September quarterly journal. The title: "Learning to Be: A Values-based Approach to Language
Learning" had been presented at their 21st Annual Convention in March. They included a synopsis of all twelve values. The journal has a circulation of about 2000."
Number of Sites Using Living Values Education
Total number of sites
27
Impact
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