Creative Approach to Resilience and Bravery in Secondary Education
CARB project background and story
The general aim of this project is to strengthen teachers in secondary education by teaching them tools for democratic dialogue and decision making, and further developing the meta skills of teachers. Teachers can use these tools and practice meta skills in their daily classroom practice across the curriculum. In this way, teachers become true role models for active, engaged, and critical citizenship, an example that can be followed by their students – the European citizens of tomorrow.
We live in a constantly changing world. In recent times, we have faced a global pandemic, a renewed and intensified social debate on racism and decolonization in a super-diverse society, the consequences of climate change and more recently, the start of a war in Europe. Not only do we live in a rapidly changing but also in a rapidly polarizing and frightening world.
At school and in the classroom, these tensions can also be felt. Young people bring their questions and uncertainties about the changing society into the classroom. In dealing with these tensions, the role of the teachers is essential. They often find themselves stuck in the middle between different cultures, backgrounds and philosophical frameworks and they experience pressure from various sides – students, parents, colleagues, school board, and society. Many teachers experience an incapacity to act when it comes to friction and conflict arising from differences in a super diverse society.
The implementation of this project will not only guarantee stronger connections (such as communication and support) between the partner organizations, it will also establish strong links between the partner organizations and the participating schools, teachers, and students in the different partner countries. These positive, reciprocal social relations will contribute to the lived experience of social cohesion and “living in diversity”.
We are convinced that participants in this project will experience that polarization and tensions can be transcended and that they can search together for a new shared space, a new commonality. An experience that will stay with them for a long time and possibly have a lifelong impact. We want to spread this positive experience as widely as possible and offer the same learning opportunities to as many teachers and students as possible.
Furthermore, teachers must fulfil their pedagogical mission not only in a changing and polarizing world, but also in a context of teacher shortages and thus increasing workloads. All this has a huge impact on teachers’ mental vitality and resilience. The specific tools of deep democracy can help teachers deal with tension and conflict in classroom management and group dynamics. This will decrease their overall workload which is yet another value adding aspect of this project.
In a nutshell
Objectives
This project wants to provide teachers and students with the necessary competences to discuss culturally sensitive issues in school and classroom context, by developing and implementing deep
democracy tools adapted to the age and living environment of students between 12 and 18 years. With this project we address three important challenges in education:
- tackling social inequality
- polarisation in the classroom
- overcoming reluctance and incompetence to take on tensions and diverse voices
Implementation
During this project, we develope a training programme for applying the deep democracy toolkit in the classroom. The toolkit aims at professionalizing teachers, enhancing teacher and pupil wellbeing, and promoting democratic dialogue and inclusive decision-making – and also has an artistic angle. We implement this programme in 12 secondary schools in 4 different countries, reaching at least 36 to 60 teachers and 240 pupils. We thoroughly evaluate the process and impact of this project.
Results
The project will produce a toolkit, consisting of 4 deep democracy tools adapted to the age and living environment of secondary school students; instructional videos clarifying the application of the tools in the classroom and a manual with wider background information. All material will be distributed free of charge via this project website. We will also produce an ebook presenting the course of the entire project and a (digital) photo exhibition of the artistic part of this project.
Consortium
UCLL is University of Applied Sciences, offering 20 associate degrees, 22 bachelor’s and 9 advanced bachelor’s programs on 8 campuses in the Belgian provinces of Limburg and Flemish Brabant. With 16,000 students and 1,750 employees, UCLL is one of the largest institutions of higher education in Flanders (Belgium). UCLL is active in the fields of teacher education, management, technology, health and social studies
UCLL combines its educational mission with practice-oriented research and services. Research & Expertise, the research community of UCLL University of Applied Sciences, has 8 centers of expertise, each with its own focus, specializations and target groups. With more than 400 researchers over 340 ongoing projects, UCLL can easily be called the Flemish university college of research. The expertise centers of UCLL are locally, nationally and internationally active in innovative practical research and services: in welfare and health sectors, the world of education, business and in the field of sustainability and technology.
‘Inclusive society’ is one of these 8 centers of expertise, in which the current project is involved. This research center aims to contribute to achieving an inclusive society, where groups and individuals have an equal voice, everyone feels connected, and respect and reciprocity are essential for interaction. The core values Inclusive Society are equality, participation, collaboration, and impact. Based on these core values, the center works around the following lines of research:
– Inclusive Learning & Collaboration
– Participation & accessibility
– Discrimination & Equality
Inclusive Society develops practical knowledge based on scientific models, literature, and state of the art research methods. Acquired knowledge is transformed into concrete and applicable tools for schools, companies, organizations and policy actors through services and an up-to-date training offer.
Link: https://research-expertise.ucll.be/en/inclusive-society
Laurea University of Applied Sciences is a distinguished and well-awarded multi-faculty university educating future
professionals for Security Management, Business Management, Health & Nursing, ICT, Service Innovation & Design and
Tourism & Hospitality Management. Laurea operates in the Helsinki metropolitan area at six campuses with some 8.000
students, 1.200 of whom study in master’s degree programs, 600 employees and 30 000 alumni. The strategic intent of
Laurea University of Applied Sciences is to be an international developer of working life competence and vitality in the
Uusimaa region in 2030.
Laurea’s strategic applied research areas are Coherent Security, Service Business and circular economy, and Sustainable
and versatile social and health care. They provide a platform for research, co-designing, testing, assessing, modelling,
implementing, and distributing various service innovations. Designing and developing services is a shared RDI process
between companies, the public sector and Laurea, in which research, development, innovation and commercialisation are
implemented as a reflective continuum. Participation in numerous prior projects have deepened Laurea’s expertise; annually
there are over 120 national and international projects, 30 start-ups and 300 publications.
Laurea involves efficiently different regional actors like students, innovative start-ups and businesses, end-users, public
authorities and organisations, regional policymakers and HEIs, to co-design business-relevant services and social
innovations within its strategic research areas. Laurea has a long history of the multidisciplinary user-driven approach,
particularly about living labs to regional development and RDI activities parallel to the practice-based, award-winning
Learning by Developing (LbD) model. The LbD model integrates students in real-life projects with the companies and SMEs
and creates efficiently required work-life competence. The students learn to combine theory and practice, resolve problems
as well as critical thinking and reflection. In recent years, Laurea has invested in developing the LbD-action model to the
digital format and experienced digital pedagogical approaches as learning in a digital living lab, virtual simulation, and
serious games.
deep:black is an award winning social enterprise that offers daring creative workshops and training to explore issues that
are provocative: conflict, immigration, mental health and identity. By creating safe spaces for challenging conversations, we
support individuals to learn, reflect and grow. In 2015, deep:black won a national award, the HSJ Award for Innovation in
Mental Health for partnership work bringing together a local mental health trust and a local school through creativity to
explore a whole school approach to mental health. Set up by two experienced mediators in 2008, deep:black specialises in
using the arts to bring people together, create dialogue and develop connection. We have a combined expertise in the arts,
therapeutic art, photography, filmmaking, theatre, mediation, teaching, coaching and effective communication. Over the last
decade deep:black has focussed on creatively supporting young people’s mental health in schools and is currently a partner
to Trailblazer a national NHS England initiative to better support the mental health outcomes of children and young people.
In addition to the offer for students, deep:black also trains and supports professionals working at schools and within mental
health services to incorporate creativity into their practice. Beyond the Trailblazer project, deep:black are commissioned for
a wide variety of creative work. We made a film about the experiences of young people with SEND (special educational
needs) in mainstream schools, have delivered our first online photography project to support young people to use
photography as a tool to reflect on the pandemic, funded by the Arts Council England, written a chapter for a book published
in 2020 about innovative art practices in mental health and are a cooperative partner at KSH University in Germany for
social pedagogues. deep:black is a small organisation that creates a big impact with a core team of 2 directors, working with
a team of qualified and professional freelancers and artists. The evaluation of our work is held by Dr Nick Barnes works as a
Young People Psychiatrist, Cognitive Analytic Therapist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at UCL. With 20 years’ experience in
CAMHS, Dr Barnes is keen to find a broader offer to enable young people and families to prevent difficulties becoming
entrenched and enduring. Although it’s challenging to quantity the total reach of our work annually as by nature it is multilayered and multi-faceted.
HUMMUS is a training and expertise center founded by Fanny Matheusen, pioneer of the Lewis Deep Democracy Method in
Belgium. The core team of this collective consists of the business manager (Fanny), her staff of 2-3 coworkers and 10-15
facilitators on a freelance basis. All the facilitators were trained by Fanny in deep democracy, the method connecting them
all, and bring in extra expertise from different domains, such as intercultural competence training, trauma work, life
coaching, liberating structures, leadership embodiment, improvisation theater, musical pedagogy, processwork, shadow
work, voice dialogue, appreciative inquiry,mediation, organizational coaching,… We work with HUMMUS at the crossroads
of our talents and like to describe ourselves as a collective fascinated by the life of and in groups. We facilitate and train
people in cocreative processes of inclusive decision making, conflict resolution and dynamic dialogues. We provide tailormade
training and coaching, and supervise processes and projects. Our client portfolio is highly diverse: small family
businesses and large companies, profit and non-profit organizations, professionals and volunteers, business or family
context,… We can facilitate in Dutch,French, English, Spanish and Portuguese. Fanny pioneered in Flanders, the Dutch
speaking part of Belgium, but the HUMMUS network is expanding further across language and national borders and
nowadays has contacts in Wallonia, the Netherlands and France. Over the years, HUMMUS trained more than 500 people
in deep democracy. Annually, the collective has some 50 customers (50 organizations) where we facilitate different kinds of
processes in the short or long term.
CESIE is a non-profit and non-governmental organization based in Palermo (Italy) and established in 2001.
CESIE is committed to promote the cultural, social, educational and economic development at local, national, European and international levels, and to contribute to growth and development through the active participation of people, civil society and institutions, always valuing diversity.
Inspired by the work and life of Danilo Dolci, we focus our actions on the research of social needs and challenges and the use of innovative learning approaches. In this way, CESIE actively connects research with action through the use of formal and non-formal learning approaches.
The organizational structure is divided into 6 thematic units working in synergy and managing activities in their specific fields:
– Adult education (Lifelong learning opportunities)
– School education (Innovation and support of diversity in school education)
– Migration
– Youth
– Higher Education and Research
– Rights and Justice.
CESIE also benefits from a broad network of partners with 3000+ civil society organizations, youth centers, social actors, schools, universities, research centers, public authorities, enterprises and entrepreneurs in the world.
CESIE staff has an international character and it is composed of more than 70 people with a wide range of qualifications, skills and professional profiles, united by a deep sharing of ideals that lead our activities.
News
Delivering workshops in Finland
CARB training in Finland!
Teachers getting trained and appreciating the practical approach
The deepdemocracy training tour in Palermo CESIE ETS
Tools
CARB Manual A Manual Full of Seeds for a Creative Approach on Resilience and Bravery in Education.
Deep Democracy
Democracy comes from the Greek word for people (demos) and power (kratos). Democracy could therefore be translated as: power of and with the people.
The addition deep carries two meanings:
● It is an alternative to majority democracy as we know it today, often referred to simply as ‘democracy’. But not everyone is heard and there is growing opposition to it. In deep democracy, every voice matters. Minority voices show openings to deeper wisdom.
● Secondly, deep refers to working not only with the rational or conscious, but also with the unconscious (or deeper level of consciousness), the undercurrent, the emotional, the physical, intuition and dreams.
Deep democracy gives a different perspective on people, groups and the world. It is also a method with practical tools. The art is in the meta-skills that make up a fundamental attitude. Working on your meta-skills means a lifelong process of growth in presence, compassion, super listening, clarity and intuition.
Deep democracy gives a new perspective on decision-making and is a powerful tool for inclusion and conflict resolution within heterogeneous groups. It maximizes the wisdom of the group. With the tools of deep democracy, we turn an unsafe space into a safer space and even create a brave space, where what needs to be said can be said. We embrace difference. Alternative, opposing, or minority voices are welcomed, leading us to wiser and sounder decisions.
Deep democracy looks at organizations as living systems. With patterns that are worth preserving because they are life-giving or patterns that are sickening or that get in the way of necessary transformations. No one escapes the latter. The society around us is changing at such a rapid pace that no organization can remain who it was without becoming a fossil.
Deep Democracy has many applications in organizations: team-coaching, vision and mission setting, conflict resolution, inclusive decision-making… Organizations or groups only change profoundly when something changes in and between people. Deep democracy has a philosophy as well as the tools that support these transformations at system, group or individual level.
In classrooms deep democracy helps to build safer classroom guidelines, to support dynamic dialogues on different subjects, to hold space when sensitive matters are to be discussed and to stimulate having debates instead of toxic polarization. Every time we work with deep democracy, we see the magic happening and new dynamics emerge.
The challenge: uniting a multitude of voices to arrive at creative and innovative solutions instead of unworkable compromises or repeating the same thing all over again.
You can expect these gains when you start applying the tools of deep democracy…
Willingness to cooperate
Deep democracy allows us to regain the collaborative dimension that we have so often lost in today’s ways of working within educational institutions, where meritocracy tends to rule and the individual performance is what’s at stake. Originated in South Africa this method is close to approaches like Ubuntu: “I am because we are”. This is a very different starting point from “I think therefore I am”.
Deep democracy seeks to transcend the one-sided mindset and fundamentally starts from the collective rather than the individual. In this sense, it is an approach that certainly also cracks some of the more Western European-oriented cultural codes.
Inclusion
In every group, people ask themselves the question, “Do I belong or not?” In every school, there are written and, more importantly, unwritten rules that determine whether you fit in. Between students and teachers, between teams and departments, or between schools and people in schools, in- and outgroup phenomena come into play.
The tools of deep democracy help to see clearly what we share and also where we differ from each other. In the four-step decision making tool, we work with that difference by seeing what wisdom the minority can add. This leads to surprising results.
Compassion
We only move when something moves us.
Deep democracy aims to regain fluidity in what has become stuck. Patterns between people, prejudices of groups against each other, a label that sticks to you. With a tool as the dynamic dialogue, we invite people to see things from a new perspective and own their projections.
We use self-compassion, the process of becoming more aware and awake as the steppingstone towards more compassion for others and the world. Compassion brings us the essential emotions to real involvement and commitment.
Effectiveness
Both qualitatively and quantitatively, effectiveness increases when you engage with deep democracy. With a check-in, you can uncover items that are in play, and you can prevent sabotage from happening in the classroom. Result: the teaching is more efficient and there are fewer frustrations with teachers as well as with pupils. The effect shows itself in a more meaningful educational space and time for everyone.
Deep Democracy and creativity
The tools of deep democracy help take the steps towards innovation and creativity.
In CARB we merge this deep democracy methodology with creative and artistic tools. Both fit well together because they invite a broader awareness into play. By using different channels of communication (verbal, visual, sound, drama…) we include more voices from and within each person and within a group. Thus, creating a richer and more vivid learning environment. Creative tools invite us to express ourselves in multiple perspectives and this results in other ways of listening to each other too: beyond biases and stereotypes, away from right or wrong. We see and hear each other with more openness, compassion and understanding.
In this CARB project our mission is to bring these tools to teachers so that they can become facilitators in their classroom of bold and beautiful dialogues.
Reinhilde Pulinx, PhD
Kernexpert Discriminatie en Gelijkheid
Expertisecentrum Inclusive society
reinhilde.pulinx@ucll.be
Hogeschool UCLL
Campus Hertogstraat
Hertogstraat 178, 3001 Leuven