In this activity, the Primary School Oton Iveković team chose to explore the value of the Norwegian partner Courage.

We researched the functioning of the Norwegian programme MOT. Afterwards we set up a plan of activities to implement with our 10 to 14 years old students.

We found this topic very interesting because, to our surprise, we realized that we mostly talk with our students about fears, and hardly ever about courage. The students were also surprised that this was our topic, but they got to work with great enthusiasm. During the course of the activity we learned a lot about our students’ personal worlds.

The activity was implemented in two ways:

1. Writing an essay
2. Painting

 

1   Writing an essay

Courage was discussed with the students in the Croatian language class, as part of teaching Citizenship.

After the discussion, the students wrote essays to answer the following three questions:

1. When was I brave?
2. A person I believe brave, and why?
3. What is courage for me? Can it be learned/acquired? When is it necessary in life?

Parts of the student essays that we found particularly interesting we translated into English in the English language class. These fragments are collected in the A19 activity presentation.

2   Painting

In the Art class the discussion topic was whether artists (painters) are brave and whether it is possible to paint bravely.

The students studied the painting by Emil Nolde Mask Still Life III (1911) and reflected on what is brave in that painting.

Following the discussion and the study of the painting, the students created their own artwork working in pairs and striving to express courage in brushwork and imagery.