Happy Classrooms: how to lower anxiety in class

Today I am posting something that I find very interesting. It is the Happy Classrooms Programme, also known as ’Aulas Felices’ 😄 in Spanish, which is focused on promoting happiness as well as learning basic and social competences for the students. I am therefore proposing some activities that can be carried out in order to foster these objectives:

 Activity 1: create a "kaiku"

- Level: secondary education students

- Objectives: to develop creative writing and to increase conscious activity in the daily life.

- Development: the first thing the students have to do is to do some research in order to find out what this type of poem is. They will have to know its origins, structure or find some examples that will be used later. So, in groups, they will have to create and write their own "haiku" but addressing the topic ‘how to live our lives in a conscient way and full way’. It would be great that the students read aloud their poems at the beginning of each class, so they can start the day being positive, motivated and also relaxed.

Activity 2: Advertising

- Level: secondary education students

- Objectives: to critically analyse advertisement and to develop creative strategies to create positive advertisements

- Development: this activity brings a great opportunity to reflect on the advertising phenomenon. Students are asked to select and bring to class some examples of advertisements which foster sexist content using women as a strategy of seduction, products that do not take into account the environment, that exploit workers in developing countries or that use child labor, etc. We will choose those who are most representative and then we will analyse their main characteristics such as the language that is used, the images and sounds, their objectives...

After the analysis, the creative part comes when students have to design and create another advertisement which promotes the opposite content that they have analysed before. They can include new images or sounds or even change the text, always trying to offer a new message fostering positive attitudes or actions. The final work can be presented by Power Point, videos, audios, works in paper, etc.

- Notes: this activity is perfect for being developed in groups where all students can include their creative ideas. Besides, critical thinking is also fostered.

Activity 3: breathing at the beginning of the class

- Level: secondary education students

- Objectives: to create a working environment in the classroom fostering students' concentration

- Time: as soon as the students know the techniques, 2-5 minutes will be enough

- Development: before starting the exercise, it is necessary to explain the students the techniques for mediation based on breathing. Once they already know them, we can choose if we want them to: merely breathe, observe the diaphragmatic breathing, breathe concentrating on the sensations of cold and heat, breathe counting a number in each inspiration or breathe combining phrases or keywords.

- Note: this exercise is very useful at the beginning of the lesson in the morning or maybe to change from one subject to the other. It does not mean wasting time if students get to concentrate and increase their efficiency.