At most schools explicit skills in maths, sciences, humanities etc are taught with discipline and rigor. The assumption is that maths takes lots of class hours, homework, tutorials and repetition to get right. Skills centered on  communication, negotiation techniques, knowing feelings, bringing up difficult topics, teamwork or how to be firm yet kind, are typically less central in the curriculum. At UWC RCN we have given priority to this area, not the least to our work centered around the 7 Principles of the Red Cross and the skills associated with it.

On the weekend of 5th-6th March, a stimulating, thought-provoking two-afternoon workshop was held, which very much complement the work that goes under the Red Cross umbrella.  For the eighteen students and staff who took part it was an introduction to the principles and practices of non-violent communication as developed by American psychologist Marshall Rosenberg. Through video clips, talks and lots of hands-on exercises we explored how to deal with ourselves and “difficult” people, gaining awareness of the importance of identifying and acknowledging needs and feelings in our interactions.

We were led by Lauge Schøler, a Danish graduate of RCN from 2008, who is a psychologist, having received his BA and Master’s degrees in psychology from the University of Copenhagen in 2015. In 2015 he co-founded a boarding school for 14-16 year olds in southern Denmark with fellow UWC graduates. Since his graduation from RCN he has taken an active interest in new generations of students selected by the Danish National Committee.

UWC Red Cross Nordic, the Norwegian Glacier Museum and 4H successfully applied to “den Naturlige Skolesekken” for a climate education pilot project. The first programme in the pilot project was a Climate Eyewitness Workshop at RCN. The workshop was organized by six of our students, coming from five different continents and was delivered for a class from Firda Vidaregåande Skule in Sandane. The workshop aimed to give a global perspective about climate change for Norwegian students through hearing different stories from all over the world and learning about how to make responsible, climate-friendly decisions in their personal life.

At the beginning of the workshop RCN students gave a presentation about climate change in general and its effects on their continents and home countries: Maldives, Morocco, Italy, Canada and Chile. After the discussion the students learned about possible solutions and heard about the Paris Climate Summit in 2015 in this context. The visitors from Firda made their own carbon pledges in groups, finding their on their own solutions, as the countries did in Paris.