Enchancing the life skills

Marmocchi P., Dell’Aglio C., Zannini M.

Erickson

Italian

English

World Health Organization – life skills education – empathy – games/role plays – good practices

Book

Parents, Policy Makers, Teachers, Researchers, Young People, School Directors.

Over 100 pages

In the first chapter we find the definition of the life skills education programme issued by the World Health Organization and the role of these life skills in social life. The most important skills to be promoted in children and adolescents are following: the decision making, the problem solving, creativity, a critical point of view, effective communication, skills apt to develop interpersonal relationship, self-knowledge, empathy, the emotional and stress management. These skills should help people establish a social and personal wellbeing, in order to establish profitable relations and to prevent harmful attitudes. Carl Rogers stressed the importance of empathy, that is the ability to understand the other person and to make him/her feel well accepted and understood. Thomas Gordon suggested a method that can be applied for the training of various categories of people (teachers, parents, adolescents, managers) and aims to develop the listening skills through empathy. The participants are asked to learn the abilities and the competences required and to apply them using games directly in a specific situation. The second chapter describes the project carried out in some lower secondary schools by a group of teachers and a psychologist that aimed at training teachers and experimenting strategies in class. The second and the third parts of the book focus on worksheets, and include a handbook for those teachers who will carry out the project in class together with objectives, instruments and hand outs (games, role plays, exercises) and worksheets for students that find a proper explanation in the teachers’ handbook.

The life skills have the objective to enhance the development of emotional and social competences in children and adolescents which are necessary to manage the own interpersonal relationship profitably. This book includes a useful description of the life skills stated by the World Health Organization carried that some schools in Emilia Romagna want to emphasize after their application. So they managed to find out the value of these intervention strategies, because life skills are often considered methods used to manage uncontrollable classes. This book is also useful for the tips and the explanation of past projects and for the huge amount of worksheets created by teachers and of exercises clearly explained to be used in class in a creative way that are ready to be adjusted to the context.

don Milani