Invisible emotions cause a lot of disruption in children's lives. Handling & preventing something invisible is difficult, especially in a classroom of 20-30 kids, each of them with 3-4 emotions in their heads at once. Since 2020, the tension and aggression has risen at every continent to previously unkown heights (COVID, scarcity of food, economical crisis, and even wars frame a childhood now). Children who live in this social environment, arrive in the classroom with the same high level of tension, that usually explodes. Teachers have never been trained to deal with this kind of tension and its behavioral consequences. This seems to be a very complex stuation yet needs a very simple and instant (i.e. effective immediate) solution. Such a solution has to be digestible for children and educators as well. We live in a world where we buy applications in an app-store to solve any challenge. Yet there are almost none that could help make emotions visible, and managible. I've designed one. It is simple, easy to use, uses universal symbols that mean the same thing in every country and social class, and teachers can implement them within their class regardless of what subjects they are teaching. The game-changer idea behind the toolkit is the change of focus the tools offer. The educators usually look for what is not working and find who is to blame for it. This toolkit is successful because it focuses on what works and how to repeat it. This creates a different attitude in class.
Tangible tools/apps are the basis of the S-Cool Days program. We teach educators during an online seminar all the background information they need to implement the basic tools. They prepare their tools during the seminar. The next day they can start the implementation in the class. Kids make their own versions of the tangible tools that will help them express their feelings in a socially acceptable way. The tools help children to communicate with their peers about emotions like anger, fear, and anxiety without hurting each other. The tools are nice, colorful, fun to prepare, tangible, and easy to use. They make anger, fear, etc. visible and allow kids to operate in preventive, "self-control" mode when expressing them. Teachers experience immediate results in handling disruptive behaviors. The regular use of these tools will nurture student/teacher wellbeing, and maintain that as the new norm in a classroom. As a result, "magic happens" is the usual feedback we receive from the teachers.
Since 2024, I created a basic symbol that can hang on the classroom door (like a wallpaper). These are great solutions for teachers who don't feel like creating their own Tembpervulcano or Moodthermometer. These stickers cotain the game-changer instructions, yet are very cheap and are affordable by all schools, regardless of their financial situation. Instead of sending teachers to long and expensive trainings, directors can simply buy the stickers and tell teachers to use them every day.
This innovation re-designs the school ecosystems to nurture a climate where student-teacher well-being is the norm. It is a preventive program, a mindset, which can be built and maintained through the use of colorful "tangible tools".
We measure spread in three different categories:
1. adults around the childhood (parents and professionals)
2. geographical (in different countries and cultures)
3. between generations
1. The goal is to establish a common language of emotions and train all the members of the entire ecosystem around children on how to use this language: present and future educators (PK-12), psychologists, counselors in the family support system, crime prevention police officers, and victim protection professionals.
2. As this toolkit uses universal symbols, it can be understood and applied immediately all around the world, in every culture and school type: in Spain, at the American School of Las Palmas, in Hungary at the Budapest School and multiple public schools, in El Salvador with children coming from disrupted families.
3. By creating a common language for emotions, we bridge the generational gap of who to discipline and talk about emotions. Using Moodthermometer is confortable for both a grandma at 88, a teacher at 45, a student at 22, and a child at 3 or 7. We exchange inconvenience for symbols. Reaction for prevention. Detention for discussion, confort zone.
The results were showcased at MIT and other conferences in Budapest, Malta, and Portugal.
1. Teachers say they don't have a tool to fight agression. I created two tools that can be used easily, to prevent agression at school and I wrote a book on how to use them.
2. Teachers complain that they don't have time to read long books. Solution: I simplified the content of the book to the least possible bit of information, and made it visually present in form of wall-stickers. I created stickers of each of the tools that can be put or hanged on walls and classroom doors. At the bottom of each sticker are two sentences that have to be said to the children when the tools are used. Teachers only need to put these two sentences into the daily routine of the children, 5-10 minutes each day, and the classroom ecosystem will change into a supportive one.
3. Many schools are very tight on budget. Solution: while schools might not have enough money to buy hightech tools, they can all afford two stickers for the classroom wall.
4. The teachers complain that parents and the society don't cooperate with them in disciplining the children. Solution: we invited crime prevention police officers, victim protection professionals, and parents and educators, and created a common language of emotions through these easy to understand symbols.
5. Our goal for 2026 is to have a person in every city in the entire country, who speaks this common language of emotions, and can create an ecosystem to prevent aggression.
Participate in the online workshop, apply for the teachers’ package.
Follow the instructions of the workshop, create your own tools.
Try them out (with people whom you trust)
Introduce in class (this is to set the ground for the new mindset)
Collect kids' opinions
Regularly create opportunities for children to use it. (This is to maintain the new mindset. The results will arrive within 1-3 weeks.)
Novelty since 2024:
Two books and two wall-stickers available (in Englsih)
The wall-stickers contain two key sentences each, which maintain the preventive environment.
The books include a lesson plan for preschool and primary school.
Which can be purchased through: https://kreativneveles.hu/product/osztalytermi-hangulathomero-es-indulatvulkan/
Participate in our free online zoom session on August 22, 2026!
