“Once upon a time…" using fairy tales for didactic purposes

Abstract

All psychological functions are developed in a social context. Learning strategies to facilitate a more effective adaptation to different situations and providing the subject the necessary data to make informed decisions is a priority. With the topic of our paper, we tried to stimulate an interest in fantasy and happy endings in our lives, the components of positive thinking to facilitate the subjects’ successful actions in the future. We, teacher and students together, tried to rediscover the role the fairy tale plays for all ages and in all situations. We have focused our attention on fantasy, intuition and activation of the resolute individual potential, approaching some unconventional methods, i.e. using stories, metaphors, fairy tales and myths as methods that could be used by fantasy, making everything possible, being in contrast to rational models. The methods used in our research included tests for identifying the subjects’ level of creativity, the classical test the “Johary’s Window” applied during the pre-trial and post-experimental stages and fairy tales or stories. The fairy tale was used as a communication tool, a projective personality test, stimulation of individual and group creativity and even as a therapeutic tool, proving to be an excellent teaching method.