Written by: Andrea Juhasz

I participated in my Erasmus+ course of 2024 the Emotional Intelligence Tools to Understand and Respond to Trauma. The course located in Italy, in Rome. I chose the this course because I realized I meet more and more traumatized students in the last years and I haven't got enough tools for helping them. I need to handle the situations which the students are traumatized, so first I have to learn more for that. And this course seemed very useful for our school Erasmus+ mobilities pledges too, and I thank my dissemination also would be useful for my colleagues. And I would like to travel to Rome where I hadn't been.

I booked a hotel room near the Europass School in the historical area of Rome. The school was 10 minutes by walk from my accomodation. It was a very good decision because during our course there was a strike of the public transport workers and some of my course mates cannot come to the lessons on Friday.

The Europass Teacher Academy of Rome was one of the best Erasmus+ mobility organizers. The school location is perfect – it is close to the Colosseum and Forum the Quirinale and other famous places and buildings. The Europass Teacher Academy was very good schol – the rooms are comfortable, the teachers were professonal and helpful and we can drink and eat lot of delicous drinks and foods in the breaks. I was very satisfied with this school. Our teacher was an American professor, a historien – she did a great job during the course, she was professional and kind. Our coursmates came from different countries and different type of schools. One part of our group arrived from an elementary school for adults from Belgrad and the others came from a prison high school of Norway and others from a vocantial school of Portugal, one woman came a private elementary school of Poland. So we arrived from different type of school and different coutries but we worked together with couriosity and empathy.

In the course first we made definition for the trauma. Psychological trauma is a response to an event that a person finds highly stressful and threatening. Trauma can cause a range of physical and emotional symptoms. Not everyone who experiences a stressful event will develop trauma. There are also various types of trauma. Some people will develop symptoms that resolve after a few weeks, while others will have more long-term effects. Long-lasting symptons may develop into PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). We talked and tearned about the type of the traumas a lot, we shared our experiences about the traumas. We talked about the traumas during the education, the poencial stresses of the classrooms too and we classyfied them.

For we as a teachers can help our students first we need to be emotionally intelligent. It is our emotional intelligence (EI) that gives us the ability to read our instinctive feelings and those of others. It also allows us to understand and label emotions as well as express and regulate them. Dr. Brackett says that the ability to reach, understand, and respond to emotions in ourselves and other people is a crucial factor in predicting our health, happiness, and professional success. We learned to build our emotional intelligences.

After that we learnt about the Polyvagal Theory which also can help to handle the traumatized students. Polyvagal Theory emphasizes the role the autonomic nervous system – especially the vagus nerve – plays in regulating our health and behavior. The theory describes the physiological/psychological states which underlie our daily behavior as well as challenges related to our wellness and mental health. By applying Polyvagal Theory to our personal lives as well as to disciplines such as medicine, education, and management, we can understand how safety, co-regulation, and connection are paramount to a healthy human experience.

After the theories we learned some technics which all can works during our school works. For example the idea of the peace corner of the classrooms and the listenening emotional musics and how can the music works, and other relaxing noises and voices. We knew the progressive muscle relaxation which can helps during the situation of stress. We learnt about the students mentoring ways. And we studied about the writing methods – f.e. notes about the positive things, feelings, expresses of the gratitudes, I liked these methods a lot.

In my free time I tried to visit as much historical places, buildings, museums, churches, basilics as I can. We received a „Roma pass" from the Europass Teacher Academy – with it I visited the Drama Museum and Ostia Antica. These two visit were my favorites.

I was very satisfied the whole experience of this Erasmus+ mobility in Europass Teacher Academy of Rome, Italy.

Written by: Andrea Juhasz

14. Nov. 2024