Hints:
- In order to avoid misunderstandings, the instructor may want to previously contact the parents and explain to them the goal of the activity (positive awareness of resources). This activity is also well-suited as a cooperation project with regular classroom instruction.
Procedure:
- The instructor informs the students that their task is to interview the parents, siblings, acquaintances and relatives about the resources which they see and appreciate in the students.
- In the class as a whole or in groups, the students collect questions for these interviews. Example: What do you like about me? What do you appreciate about me? What do you find cool about me? What do you admire about me? What do you love about me? etc.
- Collectively the students design a questionnaire, possibly in two or three versions with varying degrees of rigor. Each student should get at least three surveys filled out.
- The students distribute the instrument to the relevant people for completion, or they fill out the questionnaires together with them. Surveys can also be conducted with phone conversations (skype) with the relatives in the countries of origin.
- Analysis of the surveys in the following week (students evaluate either their own questionnaires or those of a classmate): first in form of a “sun picture” (the sun as a symbol for power and energy; see depiction below). For this purpose, the students draw and color a sun in the right hand margin and label it with their name. Arrows of various sizes and colors point to the sun; these arrows will bear the statements found in the questionnaires (e. g. “I admire your endurance”). The arrows indicate from where the sun (or the child in question), respectively, draws his/her strength. Each arrow symbolizes a source of strength and recognition. Each arrow also bears the name of the person from whom the statement originated.
- In groups, the students present their suns and their personal sources of strength; these posters can be later exhibited at an event, such as a parents‘ evening.
- Prompts for a final, closing evaluation by the class as a whole:
- What do these sources of strength have to do with my migration biography?
- What other sources of power do I have in order to recharge/refuel?
- How did my sources of strength change in the course of my life?
- What can I do with all my sources of strength?
Example sun picture
