Aggression is one of the most terrible developments nowadays. Especially in schools you see the violence of the youth increasing. Is it television, computer games, or society as a whole which makes children so aggressive? Or could it perhasp have anything to do with the school system itself?

• How can you ask children to be non-violent if their teacher constantly shouts?
• How can you expect the children to listen, if the teachers don’t listen to the children.
• What do the children really want?
• Are they enjoying their life of sitting in a classroom and learning abstract stuff because the teacher said so? Are these children happy?
• And will they be happy after leaving the school?

Aventurijn is a small private school in the Netherlands where children can learn in freedom from life itself: life is the teacher and the world is the classroom. There is no curriculum, and there are no teachers. The adults at school are just people with a little more experience in living. We call them ‘guides’ or ‘facilitators’; someone who helps you to discover your own way of learning and living.

Our adults help you by listening, conducting lessons, making proposals or just by being an example. This way children love learning and living; they actually ask for homework and classes, but they also play a lot and have much fun.

Don’t we have aggression at all?

Of course we have!

There will always be some violence because aggression is a part of life, but we believe that aggression can change into its origin of being a constructive force. In that sens it’s not the aggression in itself which is the problem. I think it’s the way respond to it which either turns it into a big issue or a good learning experience. And that is one of the most important things for the adults to do.

One day a new child came to our school. This child brought some negative energy with him, other children reacted to this and the atmosphere on Aventurijn got bad. We saw that some children didn’t feel safe anymore. Than one morning I asked the children to start the day with the whole school population together in one room (24 people).

The children and adults were sitting in a circle. I told them about how I felt about the current situation and named my feelings (sad, angry, unhappy etc). Then I suggested that they all knew what I meant about the atmosphere, and so further talking or discussion was not necessary. The fact that there was no sermon, made them feel very relieved.

Then we did cooperative game together which enhanced the feeling of belonging together. This we did every morning for some time. After a week I asked them if they still thought it was necessary to start the day this way. They all wanted to continue with it and a 6 years old girl said: “Since we play this game there have been less quarrels.”

With our game the children experienced the importance of being together as a group. It included deliberately contact, sometimes physically, sometimes mentally. Hence they became even more involved with each other. And so we now do massage, cooperative games, a story, jokes or some physical exercises. Just short activities to start the day in a good mood.

Emotional intelligence plays an important role in increasing awareness about aggression. If the children learn to manage their emotions and the emotions of others, they become peaceful people and interestingly they will also increase the speed of any cognitive learning!

We pay a lot of attention to teaching the children how to feel their emotions. In case of a conflict we don’t tell them what to do and give them our solution. We try to help them feel their emotion first:

“I think you may be feeling angry.”

“Yes, I do, and I am going to hit him.”

“You must be feeling very, very angry when you want to hit him. What happened?”

Provinding the right space allows the child to tell you everything. When all the emotions are felt and resolved, there is now room for listening to the other child and for finding a solution together for the situation. Most of the time they already know the best solution themselves and don’t need further help…

Of course this process takes a lot of time, but it’s really worth it. You see children grow and become at peace with themselves and each other. And after that there’s room for learning again.

In a classroom?

Yes.

Or in a tree, in the stable, in the woods or at home; but in all cases in a place and in the way and time that suits them best.

There’s a lot more to making a school non-violent, such as the non-violent communication or the awareness of the adults about their own behaviour. That our approach really works was demonstrated by a 10 year old, new boy, who often experienced very strong emotions: he baked popcorn for every child in school.

When we sat together at the end of the day, he stood up and gave every child popcorn with ‘a little story’: “Jeroen, thank you for learning me to handle conflicts.” “Ivo (guide), thanks for doing so much for Aventurijn.” “John, thank you for always being kind to me.” He had a kind word for everyone, and everybody listened to these gifts straight from the heart of this little man.

So harmony on schools is really possible. When people dare to be open for the inner world of children and are willing to experience living life with them.

Hannah de Vos-Beckers
founder of Aventurijn

(This article was published in Adbusters Magazine.)

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