Insight into the DREAMS method: we can really help students at risk of ESL

An educator from ICCG (Italy) shares her experience with the DREAMS piloting:

"Hello everyone. I am Franca Valeria Macaluso, I work as teacher and I deal with early school leaving. Together with my colleagues, I participated in the DREAMS project. I was pleasantly involved in the project, which allowed me to know other learning methodologies, like the Forum Theatre. The theoretical approach was useful to know new strategies to involve students in the delicate stage of the transition, and useful to implement inclusion and to help those who are at risk of ESL.

The most interesting part of the project was the piloting with the students. At the beginning I was afraid not to fully involve the students, who in fact were shy and afraid. But, with time, they got involved and they succeeded in staging conflict, fears and in giving also possible solutions. My advice to teachers who are about to implement this project is to focus mostly on the workshop stage, and to simplify the theoretical part, which sometimes is redundant. However, also the workshop stage must be simplified."