What would you like to do? Students and teachers getting ready for action!
The Centre for Creative Development “Danilo Dolci” has been active in involving and supporting the teachers who completed the training within the Start the Change project. The mentors who are part of CSC went to each school to meet the teachers in person and ask them for updates on the local project and offer support if necessary. The approach of the teachers differed in each school and it was interesting to see how each school focused on different topics of the training taking into account the specificities of each school and community. For example, some schools focused more on active citizenship, others on human rights, and others on intergenerational art as a way of expressing the themes of the project. One thing that they all shared: all teachers used the sessions of the training on emotions and conflicts in their daily lesson plans.
Besides the face-to-face meetings with the teachers, the mentors from CSC supported teachers of some schools by implementing some of the introductory activities in the classes: such as the problems and solutions that students can identify in their school and neighborhood. In this way, the students felt part of the bigger project and with a new input, both teachers and students were motivated to explore their local context and decide on challenges they would like to address together in the local project. Interesting brainstorms and ideas came forward that will now have to be developed and structured in their projects. They have decided on topics such as little communication and socialization between students, active involvement in the school assemble, or the problem of communication for which they would like to dedicate special spaces where students can meet.
Another school in the province of Palermo, due to its almost complete Italian population, decided to focus on conflicts, identity and addiction, also inviting external speakers and making workshops including the local community. Until now the activities have been largely introductory, and we are looking forward to seeing the input of students and their own original ideas to transform these topics into local projects.