Biodanza and Education:  Biodanza at School

There are a lot of discussions about the situation of school, which maily is characterized by big classes, discrimination of pupils, difficulties of atention of the pupils, a high potential of aggression, cultural differences, which are to be accepted, and so on. All these facts had given impulses to modify school.

There are concepts like the "moving scholl", programs of dispute settlement, the "healthy school", "culture and school" and other concepts and projects.

A special concept, which has a very large range, is "Biodanza in school". In this concept the afective development of the children and the relations are in the focus of the learning prozess.

This way the children can get to know their own feelings, express them and find and learn together forms to interact with each other.

They construct their own self-esteem and thereby their development of identity. Biodanza includes a estimulation of movement, but also an estimulation in the emotional skills, for example: conflict behavior, lack of concentration, expression of aggressivity and generally all emotional states and feelings (expansion of expression).

Biodanza is dance in a wider sense, Learning about the own feelings, activity and relaxation, estimulation of the self-esteem and social skills.

Biodanza shall be understood as a pedagogic approach for the purpose of opening possibilities of learning and the prophylaxis of disturbs, which have the origin possibly in the societal environment.

Biodanza can be integrated or realized inside the lessosn of sports or music or as a work group or as a special acivity in the afternoon. Perhaps you as a director of a school are interested in:

• to realize a information day with a workshop of 2 hours for the teachers
• to realize a project week with about 5 x 2 school hours)
• to realize a project for three months (weekly 2 hours)
• or to realize a project with a staging (the length depends of the financial budget)

I am open to supprt your project.  

I already realized diferent projects in some schools (secondary schools, elementary education and schools for children with special needs). sometimes I were invited to conduce a presentation class or to implement Biodanza as a teaching subject for a longer period, for example in the elementary and special school of St. Peter-Ording and the Heinrich-Hanselamnn-School in St. Augustin (school for children with mental disability).

Objectives of Biodanza at school:

1.    Reinforcement and regulation of vitality:
to experience the body in various of moves, feeling and expressing joy of life
to experience a balance between activity (movement) and calmness
to learn self-appraisal  (self-regulation)

2.    Diversification of creativity:
to experience different forms of expression
to find and try out new possibilities of expression
to get to know the own capacities and express them
to perceive the own emotions and express them
to experience the creative expression with different material: poetry, drawing, sculptures of clay

3.    Vivencia of afectivity:
to experience oneself in contact with adults and with the peer group (closemess and distance)
to frame and experience comunity
to experience oneself as "giving" and "receiving"
to feel mutual respect (to feel empathy)
to feel display of affection as natural and enjoy it

4.    Reinforcment of Identity:
to feel recognition and qualification
to feel unique as a human being (Selbstakzeptanz, Selbstliebe)
to conect to the own strength
to find courage to defend the own piont of view
to be able to set limits
to realize exercises of personal Herausforderung