“How do we want our territory to change in the course of the next ten years?”: this question represents the focus of the contents of Community School: the academy for the educational community, a didactic activity started on Friday 5th March and addressed to teachers and educators operating on the Biellese territory. The course is conceived as a means to share the experiences of the activities conducted with the project Community School (promoted by Impresa Sociale Conibambini and launched with the objective of placing the educational process at the forefront of the debate and of the territorial planning). The initiative – run by Cittadellarte, Tantintenti, Il Filo da Tessere and Associazionedidee – develops over 100 hours in mixed modality, i.e. both in presence and online, and aims at identifying and facing the issues arisen during the pandemic, keeping in mind the safety measures that need to be respected in the interest of public health.
The participants in the course – selected by the partners in the project – will attend three modules over a period of six months: networking, learning environments and educational community. As specified by the organisers, each module includes experiential visits held online or, whenever possible, in presence, through which they will get to know and experiment with realities inspired by the theoretical contents presented. In parallel with the programme of lessons and experiential visits, the Academy will require that every participant make a project work: “In the first part of the course each participant will be provided with the necessary basis to create one,” we read in the presentation of the programme, “so that at the end of the first module they will be in a position to define their concept”. Each participant in the course will be assigned with a tutor who will follow them throughout the project in a small group or individually; the four partners will also make available a group of expert tutors. Each participant will present their project work as the final test at the end of the course.
The higher-education course, curated by Alessandra Bury, Paola Merlino, Annalisa Perino and Ruggero Poi, sees the collaboration of the Provincial Scholastic Office. In addition to these experts, the programme includes lectures by Michele Marmo, Marco Marinetti, Giuseppe Pidello, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alberto Oliverio, Segni Mossi (Simona Lobefaro and Alessandro Lumare), Veronica Ceruti, Valentina Pelazza, Alessandra Braglia, Federica Collinetti, Tiziana Rossi and Lorenzo Zampieri. The course, co-planned by different organisations, is presented as “relying on the opportunities offered by digital instruments in facilitating the processes of participation of professionals in the course, and on the support of Biella’s Provincial Scholastic Office during the planning phase”.
“The Academy for the educating community marks an important achievement of Community School” Ruggero Poi said to us, “a project supported by Impresa Sociale Conibambini and asked for by a wide representation of the territory. The planning of the educational course has taken into consideration the existence of a ‘twin’ project, Skilland, which works on promoting local talents. The activities of Community School have involved 47 partners on the territory: from schools to businesses, from professional associations to parents’ associations, from cultural foundations to cooperatives, making each of them protagonist in reconsidering their educational role for the community. For this reason, the Academy is an extremely practical choral project with the objective of ensuring a sustainable future full of opportunities for the Biellese territory, starting from a more and more shared, complex and articulated vision of what we mean today by educating community”.
