For Schools

The following programs are offered in school communities. They can be adapted or changed to meet the individual questions within a class or school community. We are happy to work with you to support the needs of your family and/or school.

follow the links in the bulleted list to learn more about our in-school programs:

• The Social Understanding, Gender & Sexuality In-School Program

• Care and Development of the Senses

• Substance Program

• Healing the Impacts of Technology Program

• The Arts In-school Program

In the Arts Program, artists works directly with school communities, wider communities, families and health practitioners. Bringing the arts into community life brings nourishment and breathing into the pace of work and daily life. The arts offer an experience which moves the inner world of thoughts and feelings in a new way. Such experiences are a great support especially to the growing child, who already speaks the language of inner experience most readily.

Storytelling Through the Grades

These stories from themes below can be done as part of a creative speech workshop or as a short storytelling performance for a class or group of classes.

Storytelling themes for school communities:

• Kindergarten - Fairy Tales

• 1st and 2nd - Fairy Tales/Fables

• 3rd - Old Testament

• 4th - Norse Myths

• 5th - Greece - hexameter

• 6th - Ancient Rome

• 7th - Arthurian Legend

• 8th - 12th - Shakespeare, Parzival, Antigone

This can be adapted or changed to meet each individual class and school community. We are happy to work directly with the class teachers and school administration to support their curriculum and students.

Please be in touch if you have other ideas or suggestions for stories that would best suit your school

Singing and Music Through the Grades

• Pentatonic songs for the earlier years

• Simple rounds for primary school

• Parts singing for high school

Music for Class Plays

• Work with a composer to develop songs for class plays / puppet shows

Professional Development for Faculty and Staff

• Creative Speech

• Singing for Teachers

 School and Community Performances

• The Passing of Arthur

• Fairy Tales

• Henry V

• Antigone

• Parzival

• Songs of Joan of Arc

• Live concerts of original music

 For more information please contact: contact@developingtheself.org

Visual Arts

For adolescents.

Practicing Artistic Perception

• Drawing, painting and art-observation as a way to deepen our understanding of qualities and to experience the subtleties of our sense perceptions.

•  Working with creative exercises as a way to experience the tension between freedom and unfreedom.

This program has  developed out of a holistic understanding of the human being. A holistic approach to gender and sexuality education is essential for our times in order to support young people. The program, aims to deepen young people’s awareness of themselves and others through the exploration of topics in the area of sexuality and gender. Working with child development profiles that take into consideration the whole child, the topics for each age-group explore content relevant to the emotional and physical changes of the children whilst placing these in the context of the larger social realm. The content brings the children to an awareness of the emotional and physical developmental changes that they are currently undergoing, as well a look at the previous developmental changes they have experienced and future changes yet to come.

Developing the Self Developing the World has developed a Social Understanding Program that provides a wholistic approach to students on the themes of puberty, gender and sexuality.  Beginning in New South Wales, Australia, the program has grown and is now being taught in reach schools across Australia and the United States.

Facilitators visit schools once a year and work with students, parents and staff members.  

Schools whose students are receiving the curriculum will also receive parent lectures to inform and support parents in regards to the content delivered to the students. The sample lectures are listed further down this page.

Class Sessions

Student education starts at 10 or 11 years old. The outer maturation of the body and inner maturation of the soul begins to develop towards puberty around this age.   As a result of this developmental shift, the individual is more ready to engage with and hear about, puberty and gender.

For Classes 5–11
(11–18 years old)

a facilitator meets with each class at school for an hour long session building up themes relating to developing social understanding through wholistic gender and sex education.

Individual Sessions

Following the class sessions, facilitators offer short individual or small group private sessions.  This provides an opportunity for questions to be asked in confidence and further discussion and clarification of the topic.

For Ages 11-13*

• Developing who we are as individuals and understanding our human evolving

• Understanding our inner life

• Understanding our social conditioning and interactions

• Understanding the health and hygiene of the body

• Discussing the physical and emotional changes of puberty

For Ages 14-15*

• The developing and awakening of heightened self-consciousness

• Discussing and understanding the complexity of attraction and discussing the different types: sexual, social, romantic, developmental..

• Understanding how we contribute towards social conditions

• Understanding substance use, early sexual exploration and existential human experiences

• Exploring biological and physiological differences between males and females and the impacts of biology on behavior

For Ages 16*

• Developing and awakening your individual  self in relationships

• Understanding and recognizing the other’s experience? in sexual, social and romantic relationships

• Understanding socialised differences around behaviours in males and females

• Understanding the difference in the sexual act for the male biology and the female biology

• Discussing attraction and biological urges of males and females

• The true nature of sexual intercourse: the bodies of males and females and the sex act

• Understanding substance use and sexuality

For Ages 17-18

• Ability  to assess and understand sexual diversity

• Exploring sexual norms from the perspective of society

• How power and eroticism affect relationships

• Individual responsibility and sexuality

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