The proposal aims to be in coherence with the project “ La terra del cuore” (the Land of the Heart) that developped from 2009 to 2011 in the schools of the western part of Brescia district.
The new project is based on the development of the person in a situation of sustainability and on the consequent contribution that the basic education can supply to such construction process. The expression “sustainable citizenship” plans to summarize this perspective, suggesting a particolar point of view that can be able to represent the active citizens, compared to a vision of sustainable society.
In this perspective we agree with Unesco when it maintans that “at last the sustainability achievement will depend on changes in behaviours and life styles, supported by a values mutation. Without this kind of change, even the most enlightened legislation, the cleanest technology, the most sophisticated researches will succeed in leading a society towards the aim of sustainability”(1997, Education for a Sustainable Future)
Starting from here, we have the need to combine two elaborative strands:
a) The first strand recalls the “sustainable development” construct and it finds in the Paper of Land, one of its most preeminent and culturally evocative reference point. For this purpose we intend “education to the sustainable development” not as an introduction to a further “education” inside curricola, but as assumption of this construct as regolative ideal, that may generate and inspire learning processes, re-orienting the formative careers from the inside;
b) The second strand refers to the contruct “active citizenship”, meant as ensemble of key skills that a person has to develop in order to insert himself autonomously and responsibly in a certain social background. The perspective of the sustainable development becomes an important reading key in shaping the profile of a citizen oriented towards a future social setting.
In the Conclusions of the Eupoean Counsil on the education to the sustainable development (19th November 2010), we can read that “in the beginning of XXI century the European Union has to face a considerable amount of interconnected challenges” and that “In a world that changes constantly, all the European citizens should be provided with knowledges, skills and attitudes necessary to understand and cope with the challenges and the complexity of the modern life, considering also the environmental, social, cultural and economical involvements, and in order to take charge of his own global responsabilities”. Furthermore the Council is aware that “the initial and continuos teachers’ background has a foundamental role in the creation of a perspective of an education to the sustainable development, and in the decision of the concrete ways to activate it inside the schools”.
From this point we are supposed to reach an overall curricolar proposal oriented towards the key-competences for a sustainable citizenship, that could work as a common base for the definition of the formative proposal from the educational Institutes of the net. An ambitious project for an ambitious challenge: to orient the basic formation toward the formation of a future citizen, that could be able not only to face the present challenges, but also to predict future ones.
General purposes of the research
- To reorient the schools formative proposal in the perspective of the key-competencies for a sustainable citizenship
- To develop planning patterns and teaching experiences focused towards the competences development
- To develop common planning and value reference boards among the schools of the net
- To develop estimation methods focused toward the learning of competences
Specific purposes 1st year (2011-12 – Action 1)
- To devise common patterns for the certification of competences among the educational Institutes of the net, focuse towards a perspective of sustainable citizenship
- To produce value equipment (value programmes and veritable tasks) focused on key-competences for a sustainable citizenship, that can be common for the educational Institutes of the net
- To sensitize the Teaching Staff of the net to the problems concerning the key-competences for a sustainable citizenship and the estimation for the competences
Specific purposes 2nd year (2012-13 – Action 2)
- To confirm actively the estimation materials produced during the first year
- To test the planning itineraries oriented towards the development of key-competences for the sustainable citizenship
- To spread an educational and estimative culture focused towards the competences learning
Specific purposes 3rd year (2013-14 – Action 3)
- To devise a curricular proposal pattern based on the key-cmpetences for a sustainable citizenship
- To adapt and address in different educational contests the common curricolar proposal pattern
- To improve and spread the elaboration work developped in the whole net
