Train 90 Teachers in Rural China to Create Future

The project was titled “Learning to Manage Your Emotions”. The principal investigator was a high school teacher and the project was conducted among high school students. The project aimed to help students understand different emotions and how emotions impact one’s daily life and relationships with others. The project objectives include: 1) students are able to name and describe different emotions they experienced in life; 2) students are able to categorize emotions to represent positive and negative leanings; 3) students are able to recognize that there are no right or wrong emotions, and all emotions are valid; 4) students are able to illustrate how emotions can bring positive or negative influences through concrete examples; 5) students are able to collaborate with others and assume roles of leadership.

To accomplish the project objectives, students participated in a series of activities:

1. In-class games to share what emotions students are experiencing and learn to articulate them
2. Learn to understand and describe major emotions (happiness, anger, sadness, fear and disgust) through watching movies, having discussions about the movie characters and their emotions, and reflecting on one’s own experiences in life.
3. Based on personal experiences and observations, guided discussions are held to help students understand how emotions can positively or negatively influence one’s life (e.g. extreme anxiety and fear can be crippling, and yet a reasonable amount of anxiety and fear can be motivating)
4. Students worked together to create a picture book about emotions and distribute it among the community. Each student contributed to 1 page of the narrative or illustrations of the book. During the book production, students could apply for different roles in the process (e.g. editor, art director, marketing and outreach coordinator), and the book was the outcome of the collaborative effort of the production team.

We believe that this project has successfully accomplished its objectives and help students become more aware of their emotions and gain a better understanding of the role of emotions in their lives. Their participation in this project will lay the foundation for them to embark on a path to process and manage their emotions in a healthy and active way.