While in Italy we continue to speak – without ever acting – of emotional education among the school desks, on the other side of the world there are those who have already moved on to the facts. In Japan, an innovative school program designed to help teenagers started to recognize, manage and experience their emotions.
The project took the name of Miraes (Mastery of Interpersonal Relationships and Emotional Skills – “mastery of interpersonal relationships and emotional skills”) and directly involves high school students. An annual path that aims to prevent emotional malaise, in particular depressive symptoms, through a deep work on relationships and emotions.
An initiative not properly random: the Japanese educational system is notoriously competitive and the pressure on girls and boys often becomes unsustainable: families willing to be debt to guarantee children the best schools, very high expectations, few possibilities to fail. A context that has generated real youth crises over the years, including the phenomenon of hikikomori – teenagers who isolate themselves from the world, closing at home even for months, in the extreme attempt to escape the asphyxiating requests of society.
It is in this picture that Miraes is born, the result of an in -depth study by the Professor Akiko Ogata of the University of Hiroshima, which developed an educational path on an annual basis.
Because emotional education is needed
Because in recent years, the crisis of mental health among teenagers has attracted growing global attention, with depressive symptoms that increase alarmingly, especially among high school students. Researchers from the University of Hiroshima have now experienced an innovative intervention aimed at fighting the increase in depressive symptoms among high school students, demonstrating a promising model to face the mental health of teenagers in educational contexts.
As the study explains, depression during adolescence is not only an ephemeral phase, but has profound implications that affect the school performance of an individual, on social integration and on long -term economic perspectives. In Japan, a significant percentage of high school students shows depressive symptoms that exceed the clinically relevant thresholds, reporting the urgent need for effective preventive measures. These symptoms increase the risk of progression towards major depressive disorders, which can compromise the cognitive function, motivation and general quality of life. The educational institutions, therefore, represent a critical frontier for the intervention, given their potential to reach large student populations during the periods of training development.
Emotions to learn: 12 meetings for 4 fundamental skills
The Miraes program (Mastery of Interpersonal Relationships and Emotional Skills It includes 12 meetings throughout the school year, all conducted by clinical psychologists in collaboration with teachers.
Four main areas on which you work:
A deep, targeted, structured job. Not chatting, but true practice.
The study conducted on 120 Japanese students has already shown that those who participated regularly in the meetings (at least 11 out of 12) did not show any worsening of the depressive symptoms. On the contrary, those who have skipped multiple lessons recorded a clear increase in malaise. The data confirm what many research already suggested: working on emotions really makes the difference.
And Italy? Still at the pole
In our country, unfortunately, emotional education remains trapped between announcements and good intentions. In 2022 the bill no. 2782, designed to introduce the teaching of emotional intelligence in all schools on an experimental basis. But since then? Nothing more. The measure is stopped in the Senate, like many other important initiatives for the well -being of students.
In the meantime, cases of psychological distress among the youngest increases increase, the attempts to self -harm increase, requests for help increase. But at school, of emotions, we still don’t speak.
Italy urgently needs to open the doors of its schools also to emotional well -being. Because forming boys and girls capable of reading their emotions, facing stress and communicating in a healthy way is today an educational and social priority.
Japan understood it. What about us?
Sources: Children and Youth Services Review
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