9789180735438

CAROLINE JONSSON

MENTALLY HEALTHY CLASSROOMS Creative methods for non-toxic dialogue VALUES CLARIFICATION: APPROACHES – RELATIONSHIPS – EXERCISES

VÄSTERBOTTEN THEATRE’S YOUTH THEATRE

Mentally healthy classrooms – Creative methods for non-toxic dialogue Published by Idus förlag, Lerum, 2024 Originally released in 2020 in Swedish by the name Trygga klassrum – Kreativa metoder för goda samtal www.vistoforlag.se | info@vistoforlag.se © Authors: Caroline Jonsson © Cover: Shutterstock Editor: Inger Lundin Graphic design and layout: Sanna Sporrong Translation: Katherine Stuart Printed in i Riga, 2024 ISBN: 978-91-8073-543-8

MENTALLY HEALTHY CLASSROOMS Creative methods for non-toxic dialogue

VÄ S T E R B O T T E N T H E AT R E ’ S Y O U T H T H E AT R E

Table of Contents Foreword by Fransesca Quartey Introduction

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PART 1: THIS IS YOUNGHORSE 17

Dialogue and performance: Our Lives Opposition, protests and progress: Malin Lundqvist, teacher and founder Public storm over threat of closure!

PART 2: DIALOGUE USING THEATRE AS AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL

Values clarification exercises – an energising tool “A decent school – a right” Voices about YoungHorse “Why we have schools”: Janne Söderström, chief education officer

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“Dare to ask – dare to listen”: Liz Bertholdsson, social worker and registered psychotherapist 54

“Conversations about life are part of the school’s mission”: Adam Larsson, Head of the pupil health service (elevhälsan) 60 “Climate for brainstorming thoughts and ideas”: Theresa Eriksson, drama teacher 64 “Vulnerability, community and magic”: Matilda Kjellmor, actor 68 PART 3: YOUR APPROACH AS RELATIONSHIP PROMOTER AND DIALOGUE FACILITATORE

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Promoting relationships and facilitating dialogue: Malin Lundqvist, founder 74 “For those who don’t have the likes of a YoungHorse”: Linda Sunesson, special educational needs teacher 80

DEL 4: 20 SUGGESTIONS FOR A SAFE CLIMATE FOR CONVERSATION 85

In relationships 86 With structure 91 In the classroom environment 92 Using games and exercises 95 Anonymous notes 96 The Circle 98 Let’s play!

100 Buzz group 105 Values clarification exercises 106 Values clarification exercises: Opportunities and pitfalls 110 Katrin Byréus, school teacher, drama teacher and guide 111 DEL 5: MENTALLY HEALTHY CLASSROOMS 117

YoungHorse’s work with core values: Petra Åström, teacher and co-founder 118 Five sessions that strengthen the class: Malin Lundqvist 120 Session 1: Friendship 121 Session 2: Bullying 122 Session 3: The bystander role 123 Session 4: Self-esteem/Self-confidence 125 Session 5: The Internet 126 Where to get support 131 Last performance with year 5: Agneta, teacher 134

Malin’s thank you 140 Further reading 141 Further exploration 141 Sources 141

“Lord, I specially care for those who are very logical, pragmatic and realistic; the ones who get impatient of those who believe in the little blue horse.”

Dom Hélder Câmara from A Thousand Reasons for Living

“Skellefteå’s cultural centre Blå hästen (the Blue Horse) was named in 1993 after this poem about daring to believe in blue horses. A tribute to imagination and creativity.

What happens to us if we dare to believe?

YoungHorse (Unghästen) was named after the little blue horse in this poem. Our bold theatrical project was born out of a vision to encourage all young people to dare to believe – in themselves and in the power of dialogue. The project was created from the perspective of teaching and learning for young people, focusing on dialogue and theatre as educational tools. If our starting point had been the artistic perspective – focusing on theatre – we would not have had the same impact.”

Malin Lundqvist, YoungHorse “YoungHorse is the core values of compulsory school and the equal value of all people.

The core values are part of the curriculum and my work as a teacher: pupils being able to express themselves, formulate their views and stand up for them. I have achieved many goals through collaborating with YoungHorse.”

Teacher

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“YOUNGHORSE DARES TO POKE THE BEAR” YoungHorse has received numerous awards for its work to highlight the importance of dialogue in schools. Here is a selection.

The Children’s Rights in Society (BRIS) Prize 2015 “With its interactive theatre, YoungHorse manages to address current topics and inspire dialogue. Through the post-performance educational part, they have clearly highlighted the importance of dialogue in schools. YoungHorse demonstrates the importance of feeling free to talk about things that can feel complex and difficult. A starting point for YoungHorse’s work is creating good dialogue where everyone feels free to speak up and be heard – a view of the child that sits well with the views at the foundation of BRIS’s work.”

The 2016 Psychiatry Prize in Skellefteå: “… for their success in portraying, highlighting and taking the sting out of difficult topics through their performances. The prize is awarded by the Psychiatric Clinic in Skellefteå to the person or group that has made a special contribution to people in vulnerable situations.”

The Surfa Lugnt (Surf safely) Prize 2016 YoungHorse along with Andreas Skog, IT educator at Region Västerbotten.

“In an innovative and interactive way, Andreas Skog and YoungHorse have inspired pupils, teachers and parents to acquire more knowledge and engage in dialogue about the Internet as a safe place for everyone to be.”

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Performances of Xenophobe – We invite you to erase yourself and It’ll get better, you’ll see have been given in the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament.

YoungHorse was invited to give a pre-performance talk about Xenophobe – about fear of the alien, about everyday racism, and about reality for unaccompanied minors. Director Lo Kauppi collaborated with YoungHorse in the performance which, according to Kauppi: “forces us to probe our attitudes and behaviours. They don’t always sit easily with how we see ourselves.” The second time, they were invited to give a performance of their play about suicide.

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FRANSESCA QUARTEY, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF VÄSTERBOTTENSTEATERN:

FOREWORD In all my 31 years as an actor, director och and now a theatre manager, I have been privileged to participate in two pioneering ways of working with theatre and young people: one at the beginning of my career when, immediately after theatre school, I came to Unga Klara, which was then led by its founder, director Suzanne Osten; the other when I came to the Västerbotten Theatre as its new manager and encountered YoungHorse.

At Unga Klara, Suzanne taught us that you can make theatre out of any subject and for any age. For example I performed in Delfinen (The Dolphin), which was then the first play in Sweden, if not Europe, produced for an audience of very young children aged 3–5 years.

Malin Lundqvist, founder of YoungHorse, shares Suzanne’s belief – albeit from a completely different angle. Malin never falters in her support for young people. No subject is too difficult, no topic taboo.

But while Unga Klara’s focus was art and the child’s right to enjoy high-quality artistic productions, YoungHorse has chosen a different path – the educational.

When I came to Västerbotten Theatre, YoungHorse was described to me as being ‘a bit like Unga Klara’.

A sympathetic, but feeble description that would later prove to be completely wrong. Although YoungHorse also had an autonomous status in relation to the other activities at the theatre, the similarities ended quite abruptly there. For what I saw was nothing like the work I did at Unga Klara. YoungHorse had no playwrights, no director

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or set designer, but would put together a whole play, from idea to performance, in two weeks – in a ‘theatrical space’ created by of a worn carpet and two sagging sofas.

I was baffled.

Nor did Malin and I understand each other in the beginning, as we argued our way towards what YoungHorse was and could be in the future. Until I realised that YoungHorse did not resemble any other activity for children and young people at any other county theatre in all of Sweden. What they do is unique.

At YoungHorse, the starting point is not its artistic vision but on what schools, teachers and pupils ask them to talk about. This means topics such as racism, drug abuse, suicide, mental illness and bullying. Only then do they choose the form of expression, usually theatre, before they begin work.

After each performance there is also a non-negotiable educational part, meant to be open to the pupils’ own experiences and give them the opportunity to reflect on what they have just experienced. This is not standard procedure when performing for children and young people either.

So the recurring hits of YoungHorse are performances that have been given for years in different constellations of new actors, for new groups of pupils. Once again, a more or less unique phenomenon in the theatrical world, where the artistic longing for doing something new has to make way for the need to say what needs to be said to another generation of lower secondary school pupils.

In recent years, YoungHorse has chosen to collaborate with various dramatists and directors, which has led to a number of acclaimed performances that I myself have been extremely moved by – where the tears have flowed and my heart has been filled with light and warmth. Performances such as Xenophobe about racism – where young amateur theatre actors contributed their own experiences of dramatic situations as refugees – or Our Lives, where the light-footed

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ensemble, in a flowing pattern of movement created a virtual dance performance of what it is like to be a vulnerable, despairing and desperate young person in today’s society.

The performances end, as always, by communicating hope, love and courage to their young audiences, with the aim of energising and strengthening them. Then I feel how the circle closes – how my own memories and experiences of children’s theatre, taking a stand for children’s rights, meeting with YoungHorse and my work as manager at the Västerbottern Theatre all merge into one.

From time to time I wonder how Malin, YoungHorse's artistic director, got to be so fearless. What is it that drives her? It’s not that she doesn’t experience doubt at times (because she does) and not because her life has been just one success after the other (it hasn’t been – far from it). What drives Malin is simply that she refuses to give up. She is the sweetest person I know. She refuses to let her diabetes stand in the way of what she is passionate about, refuses to be dragged down by the apathy and lethargy of other adults, and refuses, absolutely refuses point blank, to give up hope for young people and their own momentum. Once, however, she did lose faith in everything, but then again it was that stubbornness that saved her, forced her to look inside herself and remember why she does what she does. “The young are our future – they are the best of us,” she likes to say.

I am extremely proud that the theatre has such a unique young people’s section as YoungHorse and such a committed and steadfast artistic director as Malin Lundqvist.

Now, YoungHorse’s 20-year knowledge and skills in how to listen to and talk to young people have finally become a book. Hurrah!

Skellefteå, May 2020 Fransesca Quartey

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INTRODUCTION No researcher, psychologist or other expert I have interviewed as a journalist has ever talked about theatre or other cultural and creative forms of expression as a method for stimulating emotions and creating dialogue. No young person has ever told me how they have been helped to dig deep into their feelings and allowed themselves to be vulnerable, so that they could talk about the difficult stuff – beyond dialogue, words, intellect and reason.

No one in my narrow world, where my interviewees are generally from the school system, psychiatry or social services, has ever talked about how dialogue is stimulated. The only method that everyone talks about is the talking method – to start talking in order to get a dialogue happening.

The theatre and I weren’t acquainted. With ice-cold winter hands, as a new arrival to the corridors of the theatre in Skellefteå from the capital Stockholm, I paid a visit to Malin Lundqvist, the founder of YoungHorse, which is today part of Västerbotten Theatre. I was going to interview her for an article on successful initiatives that empower young people, with YoungHorse representing best practice from Sweden in the Nordic countries. They had been invited to the Riksdag and had been awarded prizes by, for example, the Swedish organisation Barnens rätt i samhället (children’s rights in the community). What was their magic formula? Strangely enough, Malin did not focus on the theatre in our interview, but on methods for stimulating dialogue. We clicked right away when I became very interested in their talking method: First stimulate emotion. Then talk.

Then almost two decades went past. More and more teachers in the region began to call for a book on YoungHorse’s methods and work with the core values. Now was the right time, Malin thought, and she

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contacted me. She had read the book I wrote for young people, Hej, det är jobbigt (Hi, I’m having a rough time), which brings together stories from young people seeking support and guides them to sources of professional help and to support organisations. The book was written for young people who think that no one cares about them. It outlines the first step towards someone who will listen.

We shared the same aspiration – to spark dialogue between young people, and between children and adults. In that meeting with Malin, I had found a new way – creative methods to put one’s feelings into words, feeling free to act, leaving the spectator role and sparking change in one’s own life and in the lives of others.

Malin had figured out that I was a bit wary of the theatrical. But she wanted to give me the task of writing a book about YoungHorse’s work with the core values of the compulsory school curriculum precisely because I was not a theatre practitioner, and because I was the conversational, inquisitive type that would have the conversation with children and young people as my focus – regardless of form.

For twenty years, YoungHorse has created its own platform, filling a void.

The staff of Västerbotten Theatre’s Youth Theatre have such support across-the-board in Skellefteå that no one questions their usefulness in the classroom, their work with core values, and their professionalism when they portray and take the sting out of difficult issues in conversations and performances.

“Theatre takes us there, theatre is our tool, but YoungHorse sparks the conversation in the classroom,” Malin repeats. Or as a comprehensive school pupil describes their activities: “In year 3 we were flying; in year 4 we crashed. Now in year 5, they are here to see if we can fix the plane and fly again.”

This book describes how teachers Malin and Petra introduced a way of working with the core values that lives on today in the classrooms of Västerbotten County. The founder of YoungHorse wants to share methods and suggestions with readers who are teachers, as well as prompts. This book recounts the story of a successful initiative that

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has been working well in Skellefteå for twenty years – spearheaded

by YoungHorse, Västerbotten Theatre’s Youth Theatre. The book aims to engage, give tips and strengthen school pupils’ faith in their own capacities. It is hoped that readers who are teachers are inspired to lead their classes with care, and a simple toolkit, to work with the core values in the compulsory school curriculum.

The point is that, as a teacher, this book provides you with help to assure your pupils’ right to a school environment that works actively with core values, which can provide a foundation for improving their learning. And if, after reading this book, you are inspired to develop drama-based teaching methods, and to use theatre as a tool for sparking dialogue, there are certainly endless benefits to be had. But this book is meant primarily to inspire you to reflect on your own role as relationship promoter and routinely including work with core values in your own work – to make your job more meaningful. Relationships with your pupils will be strengthened. Would you like to communicate hope to your pupils? A belief in blue horses? A lifelong desire to learn? Then read more here about approaches and methods that can prevent crises in the classroom by creating a safe climate for conversation and dialogue– even without the likes of a YoungHorse.

Caroline Jonsson

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PART 1

THIS IS YOUNGHORSE “It’s difficult to be a prophet in your hometown. But YoungHorse did it!

Their regular visits have established trust and relationships with the young people of Skellefteå.”

Head of the pupil health service (elevhälsan), Skellefteå Municipality

YoungHorse was founded in 2000 by two teachers: Malin Lundqvist and Petra Åström. Together with actors and drama teachers, they create a space to work with and teach young people about the school’s core values. This work is currently part of the preventive efforts of the pupil health service, is in line with the curriculum and supplements the school’s work with core values. In collaboration with schools, the pupil health service and cultural activities, they transform values from words into deeds in workshops in Skellefteå’s classrooms. YoungHorse comes into contact with about 4,000 pupils each year.

YoungHorse’s employees act as a megaphone for the voices of young people in all situations. They focus on group dynamics. The bird’s eye view. They never view a single pupil, or a group of pupils, as ‘the problem’. The pedagogics used in this project is always based on the latest research. YoungHorse tailors: talks, exercises and performances in collaboration with experts from the pupil health service, women’s shelters, youth access centres, social services, child and adolescent psychiatry unit and the Swedish organisation BRIS (children’s rights in society). Dialogue is always the focus.

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YOUNGHORSE'S WORK WITH CORE VALUES AIMS TO … … create a safe climate for dialogue in the classroom. … ensure that no pupil or teacher feels alone and isolated. … listen to the pupils and spark conversations on current, sensitive and difficult topics. … build trust in the adult world’s capacity to help and makes changes. … train pupils in how to deal with difficulties. … instil hope!

HOW YOUNGHORSE OPERATES PREVENTIVE MEASURES: “WORKING WITH CORE VALUES IN SCHOOLS” Annual talks and performances for all pupils in the municipality: About bullying for year 5, about mental health and suicide for year 7, and about love and sex for year 8.

FOR CLASSES IN NEED OF SPECIAL SUPPORT: “CLASSROOMS IN CRISIS” 10–20 visits during the school year. Sometimes this involves working towards a final performance with the pupils as the actors. Pupils, teachers and all those who come into contact with the class are included. Parents are informed. The initiative for this work comes from the school itself.

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For all pupils in Skellefteå

DIALOGUE AND PERFORMANCE:

OUR LIVES Founder and manager of YoungHorse, Malin Lundqvist, tog initiativ took the initiative to produce a theatrical piece about mental ill-health and suicide for lower secondary school pupils when a young girl committed suicide in Skellefteå. Malin explains: “Suicide is currently the most common cause of death among 15–24-year-olds. This is something we must feel free to talk about. Especially in a time where our lives are lived online, we need to meet in real life. As a visceral artform, engaging theatre portrays characters that pupils identify with and paves the way for dialogue based on the narrative.”

The staff of YoungHorse – teacher Linda Gustafsson, actor Nils Lundqvist and youth worker Firelle Najjar – visit class 7B one October day after lunch. They are going to hold a two-hour session with a performance and subsequent dialogue during which they will portray nine characters together with the class – characters typical of a regular lower secondary school class. I join the YoungHorse trio on one of their annual visits to the municipality’s year 7 pupils.

Sarah Appelberg, script writer and director, wants to tackle shame and save lives with the help of theatre and the school performance.

“You don’t have to be ill to feel strong emotions. We want to convey that support in the form of hope and trust is available, from friends but also from the adult world,” she says.

The show was created in collaboration with the pupil health service, local child and adolescent psychiatry unit, field social workers and with vulnerable young people who talked about their experiences in interviews. Parents also attend performances, and can then ask experts and representative of, for example, the pupil health service, and the psychiatry service qeustions in post-performance discussions.

They watch the performance of Our Lives with the class.

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“In year 3 we were flying; in year 4 we crashed.

Now in year 5, they are here to see if we can fix the plane and fly again.”

Pupil about YoungHorse

For most teachers, there will be days when nothing seems to work. When pupil hierarchies seem to have gained control and the teacher doubts their own capacity to lead. When relationships with pupils need constant attention just to create some space for learning.

Mentally healthy classrooms is a book for middle-school teachers and those who interact with children and young people in schools for other reasons. It includes values clarification exercises, games and other creative methods that YoungHorse – Västerbotten Theatre’s youth theatre group – have been using for over 20 years to spark conversations with pupils about difficult and sensitive issues, and that teachers and other groups can use in their own settings.

The book also outlines the history behind YoungHorse’s award-winning teaching methods, with contributions from its founders Malin Lundqvist and Petra Åström, drama teacher Katrin Byréus and many others who provide their thoughts about the role of the teacher as relationship promoter and dialogue facilitator. This book is about how to listen and create mentally healthy classrooms – even when it feels and seems impossible.

CAROLINE JONSSON is a freelance journalist focusing on social questions and young people’s mental health. Her previous book Hej, det är jobbigt (Dynamo förlag 2018) (Hi, I’m having a rough time) was addressed to young people in need of counselling.

www.vistoforlag.se