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The impact of sandplay and imaginative storytelling on children's learning and emotional-behavioral development

Funder: European CommissionProject code: 2014-1-IS01-KA201-000169
Funded under: ERASMUS+ | Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices | Strategic Partnerships for school education Funder Contribution: 109,740 EUR

The impact of sandplay and imaginative storytelling on children's learning and emotional-behavioral development

Description

The motivation behind the project is the assumption that creative imagination is a powerful tool in the process of learning and emotional-behavioral development, an assumption grounded in scholarship that empazises the importance of play in child development and learning. The project meets a growing interest in Europe on creativity and entrepreneurial learning from early age and is hence in accordance with EU´s education policy where one of its four priority areas is on enhancing creativity and entrepreneurial learning from an early age (EU´s Education and Training 2020). The aim of the project is to implement and illustrate in multiple ways how sandplay and storytelling can be of benefit in educational setting both as a tool to initiate creative thinking and expression for pupils of different ages and abilities in their regular schoolwork and as a therapeutic method for pupils with disabilities such as poor learning skills or attention and/or emotional problems. There are certain indications that by incorporating sandplay and storytelling as a part of the curriculum for all pupils could affect overall academic and social performance and thereby increase the equality of all children in the school system. The participants are sandplaytherapists, teachers,special need teachers, psychologists and headmasters from three schools in Iceland, Ireland and Romania along with managers from two Centers in Iceland and Romania.Undertaken main activities and results: 1. An implementation of sandplay and storytelling as a tool to initiate imaginative thinking and creative expression among special needs and mainstream pupils in their regular school work. Results of the use of sandplay and storytelling in special needs and main stream education were very successful according to teachers that applied this method in all three countries. Sandtray play sessions were beneficial to pupils with social and emotional difficulties as well as learning difficulties and all teachers intend to continue using this method. Sandplay and storytelling helps pupils to escape into an interior world for a period, become relatively stress-free and release their innate creativity. All of this has a positive influence on their emotional stability and aids progress in literacy when they tell/draw/write about their creation. Another benefit arising from the session is that such children return to the classroom much calmer and refreshed. They are then much more likely to engage with the work of the classroom for the remainder of the school day. Sandplay and imaginative storytelling as a therapeutic method for students who have disabilities such as poor learning skills or attention and/or emotional problems was administrated in each participating country. 4 pupils came to 12 sessions each year. Implementation in all 3 countries was run by 3 sandplay therapists and as a part of a comparative research project. 2. A testing of sandplay and storytelling as a therapeutic method. A research project that involves a comparative study, implemented in the three European countries, on the effect of a regular use of sandplay and imaginative storytelling on learning and emotional-behavioral development of pupils with poor self-image, learning difficulties and/or emotional problems. The project took to 8 pupils from each country. The research study builds on and develops further a 4 years study in the years 2005-09 in Artunsskoli.Before and after the participation in the project, with 13 months interval, a battery of standardized tests and scales, among others the intelligent scale WISC, was administered in collaboration with a psychologist. Qualitative results were attained by case consultation with dr. B. Turner that was arranged with regular Skype meetings.The case analyses clearly show that the children addressed their inner conflicts or deficits and that they were able to progress through many of their intrapsychic challenges toward a more integrated in-tact mental functioning. According to B. Turner it is difficult to deciper the relationships between the apparent successes or struggles in the children´s Sandtray Plan and story work and their WISC scores. Some children do successful work in sand and story and their scores that both increase and decrease, as well. Successful work in the sand is a series of trays that shows an engagement with a conflict and its improvement or resolution, and or the child´s ability to construct progressively more organized with higher degrees of relationship between the figures, the earth and water. The use of water indicates an ability and willingness to probe more deeply into oneself. Story development is seen in progressively more complex and imaginative stories, showing explanations for why things are how the are, dialect, description, and so on.

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