13 people participated, most of them teachers from Ljubljana primary schools and high schools, one representative of the National institute for education, one representative of the Institute for Pedagogy and few pedagogues from NGO secotor.

During the event, a guest from the Institute of Pedagogy talked about the importance of using interactive methods for teaching children and youth empathy, self-awareness, self-reflection, intercultural and other social and emotional skills. She talked about the importance of schools for developing empathy, emotional intelligence and intercultural skills in youth and the importance of these skills in building positive relations in class, elimination of bullying and other types of violence or other problematic situations in schools, such as discrimination or exclusion of certain groups of students.

In the continuation, the representative of Humanitas presented the project’s website and the project’s results. Firstly, interactive teaching sources to be used by teachers to promote the learning of key competences and soft skills on EU citizenship and values were presented.

Afterwards, the guidelines were also presented. It was explained, how the guidelines are structures: At the begining there is an analysis of the challenges teachers have to face every day due to the lack of positive values in students. It was explained that the guidelines present existing data and research on the situation within schools in terms of school dropout, bullying, violent behaviors, and low academic performances, connected with students’ lack of awareness, self-confidence, and recognition of fundamental values.

The presentation of the guidelines finished with the presentation of the last chapter, which contains a proposal for a synergic strategy that describes the role of the relationship between teachers and pupils and how to implement and teach EU citizenship competencies at school, through emotional intelligence and empathy. The chapter should help teachers and school leaders to tackle existing issues within their schools: what are the main problems? What are the main opportunities for developing new learning paths based on democratic values and empathy? Which external stakeholders could be involved and how? How to use peer learning and participation to enhance students’ competences on empathy and democratic values?

In the continuation of the event two videos were presented, one slovenian and one italian. The teachers expressed the satisfaction with the fact that the foreign films were translated as not all of them understand english.

At the end, two activities were tested with the participants, Diversity bingo that was used in Slovenian schools during the project and Story circles that was not tested yet. With the diversity bingo it was explained that the activity aims to encourage the perception of diversity in the classroom, reflection on it and what it can mean to participants themselves and others around them.

Afterwards the Story Circles method was tested. It was explained that this method addresses students who have to share their experiences when interacting with people from diverse educational/social and economic backgrounds. It was acknowledged that the Story Circles method was promoted by Darla Deardorff (2020), and looks into fundamental values such as respect, curiosity, self- and other awareness, reflection, sharing, empathy, self-regulation and relationship building. It was also pointed out that the method focuses on the following principles: 1) ‘We are all interconnected through human rights. 2) Each person has inherent dignity and worth. 3) Listening for understanding is transformational’. It was concluded that the method creates a climate of confidence and relaxation: students can share their personal experiences, explore them with their peers and learn how to listen for understanding (making an effort to perceive another's point of view and emotions). The key is in the emotional connections made with other participants.
 

CONCLUSION

At the end of the event and during the discussion it was pointed out that projects like KeyCode that aim at introducing topics, such as social and emotional and intercultural skills to school and their integration into school curricula are of a crucial importance for building positive relations at a school level but also wider in the community and society. The teachers found it important to share the information about and links to different projects with the same objectives in order for the teachers to be better equipped for work in the classrooms. It was also pointed out that the KeyCode project’s results will be very important for teachers teaching ethics in primary schools and teachers teaching civic education, a subject, which has been just introduced into high school curricula this year.