How to help teachers use narration as a pedagogical and didactic tool within the classes?

How can we help pupils to communicate their life experiences, stimulating personal and collective reflection on sensitive issues such as bullying and discrimination?

The new KITE project officially started in October 2019 with the aim of using innovative practices such as: storytelling, symbolwork and folk tales in order to help students (13-18 years old) in personal and collective reflection within the classes, preventing growing phenomena such as bullying and ethnic discrimination.

Lasting about three years, the KITE project will develop a toolkit containing activities, methodologies and good practices aiming at raising awareness of teachers and students on the topic of bullying and promoting peer-to-peer communication and team building, through the use of autobiographical and biographical storytelling techniques, folk tales and symbolic illustration through symbolwork.

From 13 to 17 January 2020, the project partners from Hungary, Austria, Greece and Italy met in the city of Budapest in order to test the methodologies which will be included in the toolkit, through a series of simulations in imaginary situations and/or real ones. After discussing the topic of bullying in schools and conducting a first “desk research”, KITE partners will conduce a more practical “fieldwork research” by interviewing teachers and pupils who witnessed direct or indirect experiences of bullying.

Through the use of 30 techniques of storytelling, folk tales and symbolwork, partners were also able to verify the usefulness of these techniques for the enrichment, the intellectual and emotional growth of the students. These main techniques allow students to learn about themselves and interpret their emotions as well as being able to communicate and transmit those to others.

Dialogue, empathy and active listening are in all KITE narrative practices, that will be developed by the KITE partners and which will be tested inside the schools.

The next partnership meeting will take place on 4-5 May 2020 at CESIE in Palermo, in order to proceed with the development of the pedagogical toolkit.