Case Studies

Name of the teacher

Serena Cortecci

Email:

Country:

Italy

Subject taught:

Law and Political Economy

Years of experience:

26 (as tenured teacher and before)

Name of the School:

I.S.I.S. “San Giovanni Bosco”

School Typology:

Upper Secondary School

Country:

Italy

City:

Colle Di Val D'Elsa (Siena)

Web site:

Background and Context:

The “San Giovanni Bosco” High School includes a High School section and a Vocational section. The High School section is divided into three courses: Language High School, Humanities School and Socio-economic High School. The Vocational one is divided in two courses: Industry and Handicrafts (Maintenance and Technical Assistance, Industrial and Handicraft Textile Productions, before called Clothing and Fashion course). There is a total of 943 students, of which 124 foreigners who represent a percentage of 13% of the student population, with representatives coming from different European and non-European countries (the most numerous is the Albanian and Romanian communities).
In Colle Val d'Elsa city, the foreign community most numerous is the one coming from Albania (26.9% of foreigners), followed by Romania (14.6%), Senegal (7.5%) and Morocco (7, 3%). Based on data provided by the Siena Provincial Social Observatory: from December 2013, Colle Val d'Elsa is the third largest municipality of the Siena province (after the city of Siena and Poggibonsi) for foreigners’ numerical presence (about 2400). The town of Colle Val d'Elsa promotes from long time the integration and belonging sense to the community also through the action of institutions present on the territory, as the Intercultural Foundation and Islamic Cultural Center. Important is also the activity carried out by voluntary associations that are involved in hospitality and literacy of the foreigners.
The school has multimedia classrooms, language, scientific, IT, mechanics and textile labs. There is a library within the school, the auditorium used for conferences and meetings and from this year, an auditorium available from the entire Colle Upper Secondary School campus. Physical education is carried out in a building, that is part of the institute, and in a smaller gym.
From few years our Institute, just in order to foster inclusive processes and improve the quality of school life, experiences innovative educational activities in the Socio-economic course classes with the objective that such practices will be expanded to all the courses.
In fact, the activity management of this course, is based on didactics for thematic classrooms, democratic and cooperative learning spaces that are prepared by teachers and students, and that stimulate an operational and interdisciplinary approach.

Factual Description:

This project has been realised thanks to the funding of the Tuscany Region in the field of interventions links to the issue of Participation (L.R.46/2013) from the school year 2015/2016 and is still ongoing.
The project was born from a necessity to create a space, within the school but open to community, that could become a space for dialogue and integration, not only using the language as communicational tool but also through performative experiences (choir singing, music, theatrical actions, events). The management and activities of this intercultural space are planned and followed by a student’s groups belonging to different courses of our Institute (High School section, Human Science and Socio-economic High School; Vocational section, Maintenance course). Within the class groups, the presence of students of other nationalities (European and non-European) is so relevant and this represents a strong point of the “Colle-ga-menti” project.
The project is structured in several phases:
1. Class groups worked, helped by experts of participation technics, to the organization of the space, experiencing the share of the decisional processes;

2. Students and their families have been involved in the experience of donating gifts, enriching the space-classroom with gifts having memory and narration value;

3. The young students concretely set up the space (painting, cleaning, furniture) and provided the opening ceremony and presentation to the community;

4. A Management Board has been created - composed of teachers, parents and students - who planned an agenda of events. The space is designated to give continuity to the planning idea through solidarity, cooperation, integration and cultural enrichment initiatives.

Currently we have an agenda of events with two monthly planned activities that are developed during afternoon to allow the participation of the whole community.
The space has to be a place of strong sociality both within the school and for the territory, promoting also volunteering initiatives as the fund raising for a multi-purpose Centre in Norcia.
The project sees the participation of Intercultural Foundation (that has a national headquarter exactly in Colle), Europe Direct of Siena and the Library in Colle.

Activities carried out:

Creation of Management Board of the intercultural space that allow the presence of students (some are foreigners), parents, teachers, and project partners: Intercultural Foundation, Europe Direct, the City Library.
Students with parents take care of the organizational aspects related to the planned events (making fliers, space set-up, preparation of the outlines, assistance during the events).

Creative communication workshop: realization of a press, radio media that sees the involvement of young people coming from all the courses of our school.

Creation of a small band “Multi-ethnic Band” which accompanied the planned initiatives.

Together for Norcia: initiative organized on the 21th of December 2016 to start the fund raising for the multi-purpose centre in partnership with Cesvol. Other initiatives will continue with the auction sale of the clothes made by the Fashion course of this School.

The Project “On air: seats in the set”: performance in Piazza Arnolfo in partnership with Rocca di Staggia Foundation. Interactive artistic experience, made by two classes of the fifth year of the Human Science and Socio-economic High School which created a positive occupation of urban spaces that became place for social relationship and education.

The parents became the essential part of our educational path, getting excited and supporting the students proposes in an adequate manner, comparing with them in an open and equal manner.

Assessment and lesson learnt:

It has been observed an improvement of the students’ participation on school and community life, destroying the prejudices against other cultures.
The School is becoming open to the territory, its resources and institutions, actively involving the young people in communal issues.
Within this experience, other creative and communicative activities were born, as the Communication Workshop (Media, Radio and Press Office), animated by a group of teachers and students.
Students and their parents work together to realize events and initiatives in the intercultural space.
It concerns a motivating and involving experience in continuous evolution, which increases the social and civil responsibility sense and favourites the comparison between different generations and cultures.
The planning idea is transferable and replicable in other contexts, each of them will enrich it with new and different contents.

Description of the Case Study in National Language: