Final chapter: Whistling to school…is possible!
When we began working on our project at school some teachers were skeptic….is it possible? Whistling to school?
At this time in Italy our school system is facing numerous problems. Teachers are teaching classes of about 25-30 students and a lot of these have personal problems and come from families with social diseases. Teachers are not adequately paid and sometimes work in very stressful conditions.
Anyway, we started our activities …at first reading the fantastic book of Leo Bormans…the colleagues of the working group were excited … twelve secrets of being happy…. we found a lot of good suggestions in it to improve our personal lives and this has helped us to improve our relationships at school. After this, we read another fantastic book that opened our mind… Discover your strengths, that gave us energy and enthusiasm for this project and so we began to involve not only teachers, but also the parents of our students in our activities…what can we do to improve our school life? This was the question! To be happy and whistling to school or to be dissatisfied, unhappy and look forward to the bell ringing?
Some suggestions came from the first mobility in Belgium…there the Italian team realized that WHISTLING TO SCHOOL IS POSSIBLE…a great friendly atmosphere, a comfortable room for teachers, where they can get to know their colleagues better and understand that you have some great friends at school; we had not seen anything like this before, in fact, we had never had this type of social experience at school; in Brugge we learned a lot and shared even more, thanks to the great leadership of our coordinator: Rudy, the friend that everyone wants to be next to, not only in the teacher’s room or in the Head Teacher's office but in a café, over a good cup of coffee or a glass of Belgian beer…!
“Happiness is real only when it is shared; Happiness held is the seed itself, happiness shared is the flower.”
We could realize it when we spent time with other people from different European countries for the first time and we shared the same aims: knowing new strategies for our well-being in school.
All that was a new real experience especially from the social point of the view: making new relationships and hearing new stories about unknown people …new cultures, new ways of life, new international schools, new manners of teaching from Europe.
The most important thing was to believe in that and practicing our new competences in the same life, too. We were really happy when, after the first meeting, we wrote the “inspirational quotes about happiness” to fix them” in our thinking and use them at an appropriate time. A special moment of happiness was the day in which we shared them with our colleagues and reflected about their meaning…to improve, in this way, our personal and professional development.
After the second mobility in Sicily, our school has a new look and our teachers too… We have found another way to stay together, we have found the space and the time to stay with colleagues in a fun way without losing sight of our professional growth; so we organized moments of enjoyment and relaxation and opportunities for training in facilitated group mentoring, getting to know us better and to appreciate each other in informal situations.
We organized with enthusiasm the meeting involving a lot of parents of our students and their collaboration was essential, without them we could not make the stay of our colleagues so comfortable and memorable; when we organized the concert with the band for the welcome day, we stayed at school for orchestra rehearsal until late evening, it had never happened before; a student tried an acute with the trumpet until his performance was perfect… we had no hurry for the bell to ring, so we can say: whistling to school is possible but also playing the trumpet, dancing, eating together and smiling, in one word…to be happy!
In June 2014 we met our European friends again in Norway! We recovered the same friendly, lovely and happy atmosphere! The new contact with nature brings out the child who lives in each one of us, of whom we often forget about because we usually are in a hurry going about our daily routine.
We’ll never forget the afternoon we spent in that “wonderful Dag’s cabin” in Norway…or the “painting lesson” of our Norwegian friend…where the most fun and important thing was as always sharing…food, work, smiles , song, laughs…in other words …feelings!
And what about the “Preikestolen”? The meaning of tiredness, willing, the achieved goal, the sense of freedom and satisfaction and the memory of “helping hands”…from our wonderful Norwegian friends!
Finally in our last trip how could we forget the amazing green Irish environments: Giant’s Causeway, with its majestic and marvelous beauty! The noisy crowded lively typical pubs where you could meet all sorts of people and taste delicious food…fish and chips! The Theme party…with Abba’s songs…too funny!
For us, one of the most interesting things was visiting all the schools especially the schools for children with special needs...touching and moving because school is at the center of our work …and our life! We were impressed with the different ways of teaching… the technological equipment…but mostly with the children so spontaneous, loving and clear !
At the end of our growth process we learnt to apply the positive guidelines, to appreciate life day by day, to find happiness in the smallest things, to discover our strengths, improve our skills, to overcome difficulties, to accept our failures, to promote altruism and empathy believing in social interpersonal skills.
After this project we’ll go on with what we've learnt: collaborating with each other, spending more time socializing with our colleagues , creating “spare time” to share our experiences at our workplace, trying to discover the “beautiful person” inside our colleagues.
Now we really believe that whistling to school is …possible!
Comenius Italian team,
Dina, Carmelina, Lory and Candida.
Termini Imerese, April, 17th 2015
When we began working on our project at school some teachers were skeptic….is it possible? Whistling to school?
At this time in Italy our school system is facing numerous problems. Teachers are teaching classes of about 25-30 students and a lot of these have personal problems and come from families with social diseases. Teachers are not adequately paid and sometimes work in very stressful conditions.
Anyway, we started our activities …at first reading the fantastic book of Leo Bormans…the colleagues of the working group were excited … twelve secrets of being happy…. we found a lot of good suggestions in it to improve our personal lives and this has helped us to improve our relationships at school. After this, we read another fantastic book that opened our mind… Discover your strengths, that gave us energy and enthusiasm for this project and so we began to involve not only teachers, but also the parents of our students in our activities…what can we do to improve our school life? This was the question! To be happy and whistling to school or to be dissatisfied, unhappy and look forward to the bell ringing?
Some suggestions came from the first mobility in Belgium…there the Italian team realized that WHISTLING TO SCHOOL IS POSSIBLE…a great friendly atmosphere, a comfortable room for teachers, where they can get to know their colleagues better and understand that you have some great friends at school; we had not seen anything like this before, in fact, we had never had this type of social experience at school; in Brugge we learned a lot and shared even more, thanks to the great leadership of our coordinator: Rudy, the friend that everyone wants to be next to, not only in the teacher’s room or in the Head Teacher's office but in a café, over a good cup of coffee or a glass of Belgian beer…!
“Happiness is real only when it is shared; Happiness held is the seed itself, happiness shared is the flower.”
We could realize it when we spent time with other people from different European countries for the first time and we shared the same aims: knowing new strategies for our well-being in school.
All that was a new real experience especially from the social point of the view: making new relationships and hearing new stories about unknown people …new cultures, new ways of life, new international schools, new manners of teaching from Europe.
The most important thing was to believe in that and practicing our new competences in the same life, too. We were really happy when, after the first meeting, we wrote the “inspirational quotes about happiness” to fix them” in our thinking and use them at an appropriate time. A special moment of happiness was the day in which we shared them with our colleagues and reflected about their meaning…to improve, in this way, our personal and professional development.
After the second mobility in Sicily, our school has a new look and our teachers too… We have found another way to stay together, we have found the space and the time to stay with colleagues in a fun way without losing sight of our professional growth; so we organized moments of enjoyment and relaxation and opportunities for training in facilitated group mentoring, getting to know us better and to appreciate each other in informal situations.
We organized with enthusiasm the meeting involving a lot of parents of our students and their collaboration was essential, without them we could not make the stay of our colleagues so comfortable and memorable; when we organized the concert with the band for the welcome day, we stayed at school for orchestra rehearsal until late evening, it had never happened before; a student tried an acute with the trumpet until his performance was perfect… we had no hurry for the bell to ring, so we can say: whistling to school is possible but also playing the trumpet, dancing, eating together and smiling, in one word…to be happy!
In June 2014 we met our European friends again in Norway! We recovered the same friendly, lovely and happy atmosphere! The new contact with nature brings out the child who lives in each one of us, of whom we often forget about because we usually are in a hurry going about our daily routine.
We’ll never forget the afternoon we spent in that “wonderful Dag’s cabin” in Norway…or the “painting lesson” of our Norwegian friend…where the most fun and important thing was as always sharing…food, work, smiles , song, laughs…in other words …feelings!
And what about the “Preikestolen”? The meaning of tiredness, willing, the achieved goal, the sense of freedom and satisfaction and the memory of “helping hands”…from our wonderful Norwegian friends!
Finally in our last trip how could we forget the amazing green Irish environments: Giant’s Causeway, with its majestic and marvelous beauty! The noisy crowded lively typical pubs where you could meet all sorts of people and taste delicious food…fish and chips! The Theme party…with Abba’s songs…too funny!
For us, one of the most interesting things was visiting all the schools especially the schools for children with special needs...touching and moving because school is at the center of our work …and our life! We were impressed with the different ways of teaching… the technological equipment…but mostly with the children so spontaneous, loving and clear !
At the end of our growth process we learnt to apply the positive guidelines, to appreciate life day by day, to find happiness in the smallest things, to discover our strengths, improve our skills, to overcome difficulties, to accept our failures, to promote altruism and empathy believing in social interpersonal skills.
After this project we’ll go on with what we've learnt: collaborating with each other, spending more time socializing with our colleagues , creating “spare time” to share our experiences at our workplace, trying to discover the “beautiful person” inside our colleagues.
Now we really believe that whistling to school is …possible!
Comenius Italian team,
Dina, Carmelina, Lory and Candida.
Termini Imerese, April, 17th 2015