It starts with teachers who dare to hold the space for real dialogue
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Dec
11
2025
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It all starts with teachers who dare to hold space for real dialogue.
This week we celebrated the end of the CARB (Creative Approach to Resilience and Bravery) project. The end of the project, but the beginning of a new way of supporting teachers and students to navigate sensitive, complex conversations.
CARB is an Erasmus+ project, an European Commission initiative that supports organisations in collaborating on education, training, youth, and sport. Through this collaboration with 5 different partners across 4 countries (and 12 secondary schools!), we developed a hashtag#deepdemocracy toolkit, a manual and instructional videos designed to give teachers the confidence and language to address sensitive, polarising topics in the classroom.
Since the beginning of the project (almost 2 years ago), we’ve trained dozens of teachers through sessions in Palermo, London, Helsinki, and Belgium. By now the first schools have begun embedding these tools in daily classroom life.
The results are powerful: improved classroom atmospheres, more trust and openness, fewer escalations and above all: a real shift in how teachers and students engage with difference, conflict and dialogue.
One teacher shared that after introducing a simple 5-minute dialogue ritual at the end of each lesson, “hidden voices” began to surface. Opinions that previously stayed silent are now being heard.
