Areas of Personal Growth
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APG 01. Tool to Define Educational Trails in the Areas of Personal Growth
Introduction
Prior to writing the final educational competencies, you need to define educational priorities or trails for each area of personal growth.
To define what are the educational priorities, consider the following criteria:
- Young people’s needs and aspirations in a particular social and cultural context.
- The social, cultural, economic, and political demands that you have identified in the definition of your Educational Proposal.
- Your capacity as an NSO to give answers to both the needs and aspirations of young people and to the demands of society, from the relevance of your NSO’s Educational Proposal.
Concept
Areas of personal growth and educational priorities or trails are necessary to establish the educational objectives on which you will develop your Youth Programme.
Objectives
This tool is intended to
- help in the formulation of the educational priorities of each area of growth.
This tool is intended for
- the team responsible for the process of designing or reviewing your NSO’s Youth Programme.
- participants who will use this material in seminars or workshops to study, debate, and design/review your NSO’s Youth Programme.
How to use this tool
- Read and discuss the material: Example of educational priorities.
- In a plenary session, define the main challenges youth are facing in your country.
- Divide the participants into six working teams, one for each area of growth.
- Ask each team to connect the challenges that were identified in the plenary sessions with the educational priorities in each area of personal growth.
- Next, have each team exchange their work and analyse the educational priorities produced by other teams. Take into account whether they are properly drafted, clear, understandable, and pertinent.
- Finally, in a plenary session, ask the teams to share their conclusions and suggestions for improvements.
Steps to Define Educational Priorities
1. The participants reflect on the main challenges that young people face in their educational process, using as a reference each of the growth areas.
To carry out this task we suggest taking into account:
- The ideal profile of a person established in the Educational Proposal.
- Competencies for sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Other materials that your NSO considers relevant for its educational offer.
2. Individually, each participant writes a challenge that they have identified on a sticky note and places it on a board.
3. Then, in a plenary session, group the challenges into large thematic blocks. For example:
| Area | Challenges list | Thematic block |
|
Physical development |
Health. Active security. Knowledge, care and maintenance of the body. Ability to manage free time and work time. Ability to enjoy nature. |
Health |
4. In teams, the challenges are transformed and grouped in thematic blocks, educational priorities, and common concepts in order to have the minimum possible number of priorities. In the following, we have proposed:
| Area | Challenges | Educational Trails |
|
Physical development |
Health. Active security. Knowledge, care and maintenance of the body. Ability to manage free time and work time. Ability to enjoy nature. |
|
Example of Educational Priorities
The following are examples of educational priorities for each area of personal growth. We strongly encourage you to find the best formulation for your NSO, taking into account the cultural context of your country.
When formulating educational priorities, consider the following:
- Do not draft an excessive number of priorities; three or four priorities per area of personal growth are often sufficient.
- Define educational priorities that consider young people’s needs and aspirations in a particular social and cultural context.
Connect with the social, cultural, economic, and political challenges presented in your NSO’s Educational Proposal.
Definition
Becoming responsible for the growth and functioning of your body.
Educational priorities
- Identifying needs
- Understanding how your body-mind functions.
- Understanding the changes in your body.
- Understanding the relationships between your body and the environment, your body’s needs, and its natural rhythm (oxygen, balanced meals, rest).
- Respecting your body and avoiding abuse.
- Maintenance (being fit and healthy)
- Healthcare and hygiene
- Nutrition and proper eating habits
- Physical activity and exercises
- Efficiency
- Developing your senses: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing.
- Developing your resistance, strength, suppleness, elasticity, agility, and self-control.
Definition
Developing your ability to think, innovate, and use information in an original and relevant way.
Educational priorities
- Searching information
- Curiosity
- Exploration
- Research
- Observation
- Processing information
- Analysing data.
- Sorting and classifying information.
- Thinking critically.
- Problem-solving
- Spirit of inventiveness and creativity
- Experimentation
- Hypothesis and deduction
Definition
Recognising your responsibility towards yourself and your right to develop, learn, and grow in the pursuit of happiness, while respecting others. Learning to be assertive, make decisions, set goals, and identify the steps to achieve them.
Educational priorities
- Identity
- Discovering and asserting yourself; setting objectives for personal progression.
- Autonomy
- Being able to judge reality; being able to make decisions, make choices, and understand their consequences.
- Being able to manage your time; define priorities, respect them, organise your work and your free time, and plan your projects.
- Commitment
- Being able to perceive challenges and take a position; commit to a project and persevere despite the difficulties.
- Being able to make life choices (profession, lifestyle) and make decisions to reach your personal goals.
Definition
Recognising your feelings and learning to express them in order to achieve and maintain an inner state of freedom, balance, and emotional maturity.
Educational priorities
- Self-discovery and awareness
- Recognising and accepting your emotions.
- Discovering yourself.
- Self-expression
- Expressing your feelings using various creative methods of expression.
- Responsibility and self-control
- Managing your feelings and emotions in order to respect your integrity and that of others.
- Responding in a responsible manner to feelings expressed by others towards yourself.
Controlling aggression.
Definition
Acquiring the concept of interdependence with others and developing your capacity to cooperate and lead.
Educational priorities
- Relationship and communication
- Developing an appreciation of relationships with others (recognise and accept differences, have empathy, and listen actively).
- Developing communication skills.
- Working towards an equal partnership between men and women.
- Rejecting social or nationalistic stereotypes and prejudices.
- Cooperation and leadership
- Learning how to cooperate: building a team spirit; taking on a role within a group; developing, respecting, and evaluating communal rules; understanding interdependence and reciprocity; managing a collective project; training in citizenship.
- Taking on responsibilities in order to serve others.
- Solidarity and service
- Discovering the interdependence among individuals and communities.
- Developing a sense of belonging to an increasingly larger community.
- Developing a sense of service and the common good.
- Adopting the values of democratic and social justice.
Definition
Acquiring a better understanding of the spiritual heritage of your community, discovering the spiritual reality that gives meaning to life, and drawing conclusions for your daily life, while respecting the spiritual choices of others.
Educational priorities
- Welcome others
- Welcoming and respecting others.
- Listening openly to others.
- Being able to show compassion.
- Wonder at the natural world
- Being sensitive to the wonders of nature and life.
- Living sustainably and simply.
- Work to create a more tolerant and caring society
- Playing an active role in your community.
- Sharing responsibilities.
- Cooperating with others to bring about improvements in society.
- Developing your talents and skills to better serve and live.
- Wisdom, self-confidence, and self-discipline
- Accepting responsibility for yourself and others.
- Exercising self-discipline.
- Drawing conclusions for your life and acting on them.
- Being courageous and having a sense of hope for the future.
- Worship for a spiritual response
- Exploring the spiritual/religious heritage of your community, using it in making sense of your past and present experiences.
- Drawing on the spiritual heritage of your community to express gratitude, need, and sorrow.
