Full Name: Blickpunkt Identität

Region: Blickpunkt Identität is located in the south-east of Austria, next to the border to Hungary and Slovenia.

Type of Organisation, fields of activity:

Our association has specialised on projects in the field of education. We love to combine new ways of thinking with innovative methods, and to share them with others in the context of lifelong learning. Another field of activity is counselling young persons to find the education that fits best to them and to overcome challenges on their way.

Topics, we are focused on, are resilience, positive psychology, prevention of school dropout and school development.

Target Group

We love to work with persons of all ages. It is only important for us that these persons are open to learn and experience new things.

What is particularly important to you?

Our vision is a better world where no human being shames, threatens or exploits another. A world where everyone has a choice in how she or he behaves and so chooses behaviours that are meaningful and serve everyone to live a life in freedom and dignity.

When we came up with the idea for the project, Europe was concerned with many essential humanitarian questions after the refugee crisis. Of the many ways to deal with it, more and more people chose exclusionary and devaluing strategies to deal with the challenge. We were just in the middle of our project « Best Performers in Education » and had the chance to learn many innovative and inclusive strategies to deal with diversity. And once again we could see how important schools are for the development of independently thinking and responsible citizens. So, we wrote this project and called it European Heart, because we are convinced that people should think and act not only from the mind, but also from the heart.

As coordinator, we are primarily responsible for the entire project process. This includes making sure that everyone works well together, that the planned deadlines are met and that the quality of the products is right as well as keeping an eye on the budget and writing the reports.

We bring in William Glasser’s theory of the five basic needs and add to it the approach that each person uses strategies to fulfil these needs. Students learn to decide positive strategies (in the sense of serving oneself and the community) from negative strategies (in the sense of harming oneself or others).

A toolkit, consisting of different working materials explains the approach to students aged 13 to 16 and enables them to engage with it through exercises, tasks and exchange with others.

In addition, we will describe two historical episodes on the road to democracy. The goal is to motivate students to step into the shoes of the protagonists who were involved in these crucial points of history. What strategy would they choose to fulfil their basic needs?

We will develop parts of a game in which students can cooperatively deal with current issues of human rights and train democratic skills.

For teachers, we will develop two online modules:

• A module about how a school can improve its school culture by using our products.
• A module that empowers teachers to reflect on the extent to which their own needs are met in the classroom and the strategies they use to meet them.

https://www.blickpunkt-identitaet.eu/

Susanne Linde, MSc
Mag. Klaus Linde-Leimer, MSc
office [at] blickpunkt-identitaet.eu
+43 681 1043 4503