Project Material: Polo Liceale di Imola "Rambaldi - Valeriani" e "Alessandro da Imola"

1. Case study. Siamo tutti uguali? Are we all equal?

When carried out?
February to April 2007.
Which classes (if applicable)?
In a first class of the Language course (students aged 14)

During the lessons of Geography in English while talking about the phenomenon of migrations both in history and in present time, we (the teachers) realised that one of the main reactions of some students was an attitude of fear, uncertainty towards people of different nationality, people we do not know much about or that we know through prejudice. We understood it was the starting point of a long and difficult path, but we were and are determined to help our students to increase their curiosity of getting to know different people and cultures and being aware of differences as richness for everybody. The analysis of the past has accidentally happened to be the indicator of uneasiness for some students towards immigrants. Therefore we decided to integrate the topic "Movements of people" with lessons on "Human rights".
Our aims are:

• making the students think over and analysing RIGHTS which are given for granted, but they are not;
• investigating on the matter with a couple of examples (situation in different countries)
• comparing the analysed situations and expressing personal opinions
• Respecting the "Right" in a familiar context (to what extent, how etc...)

Evaluation
So far the activity has proved to be successful in terms of making the students think about "human rights" while concentrating on situations of the past. We certainly have to get into a more down to earth activity for which they will consider our present society and our context.
It is a rather difficult work as some students' negative reactions towards immigrants reflect what they assimilate in their everyday world and it is very challenging to try the effort of making positive attitude prevail.
Talking about "Human Rights" tend to be rather rhetorical, the main point is to be able to do what we preach and work on every day situation. This part is still being processed and unfortunately we do not have any final products to report on.

Is this best practice transferable to other schools?
Try to be as practical as possible taking over values through examples of the everyday life of students.

Click here to read the didactical outline of the assignements

Very practical explanation for teachers and students

 

 

Click here for the charter of Fundamental rights

Very practical explanation for teachers and students

Click here to read the PPoint about Human rights in PDF format
Click here to read the PPoint about Migration in PDF format
Click here to read the PPoint about World of people in PDF format

2. Student's questionnaire. Sport and Sport Europa

The first page of the questionnaire.

Click here to download the questionnaire

A power point presentation made by a teacher's work group Riccione 2006.

Click here to download the presentation on child's rights in sport

3. Meeting of board of students about "IL Diverso" March 16 2007

The four representatives of students who are in the Board management of the school.

L'ASSEMBLEA di ISTITUTO
The "Assemblea di Istituto" (the students' plenary) can be held nearly once a month instead of classes. It is fully organised by the students' representatives who are elected every year.
At this general meeting students can discuss, talk about a large range of matters (politics, culture, current news, school matters etc....). It is led by the students' representatives who usually decide on the theme and which perspective. We consider it is a very useful and meaningful instrument to make students aware and willing to communicate on important matters. It is not a full-morning meeting to skip normal classes, but an enriching activity to practise intelligent listening and opening up your horizons.

On 16th march 2007 we organised the "Assemblea" on the theme "Il diverso" (= the different one). We meant to discuss about diversity, of any kind, social and physical. Mainly we wanted to focus on the many difficulties a "diverso" has to face in the everyday life.

We invited some experts. The first one was Andrea Stella, a young man graduated in law. Soon after having obtained his degree he gave himself a holiday in Miami, but unfortunately he was shot happening to be accidentally on the scene of a robbery. Because of this injury he is forced on a wheelchair unable to walk, but he is a man of willpower and he started his active contribution on a campaign pro disabled people. He had a catamaran built on which he sailed to Maiami again and this ship is all equipped to make the cruise possible for any disabled.
But Diversity can also be at social level. To introduce this different connotation we invited two social workers: Stefano Martinelli and Gemma Mengoli. With them we analysed the condition of those people considered socially inferior. We screened a short film by Spike Lee "Jesus Children of America". It is the story of a 12-year-old girl whose parents are full-blown Aids and she is mocked by her peers. The short story ends with poor Blanca (the protagonist) entering a therapeutic community for Aids affected people.

During the discussion we agreed on the fact that certainly disabled or excluded people are often left behind, not taken into consideration among the majority until we are not forced to cope with them, and still a lot of us feel they are inadequate to cope with them naturally. With the social workers the discussion also dealt on bullying as we often listen to and read about this phenomenon of aggression at school.

The "Assemblea" has received the support of Imola Municipality who gave us the venue and the technicians. The "Palazzina", a well-stocked film library in Imola, introduce Stella to us.
The four of us agree on the success of the "Assemblea". We received positive feed-back from a lot of students and the teachers as well. We are sure it has had a rather strong impact on the students in terms of both personal feelings and more aware consciousness of the many serious problems.

The four representatives:
Andrea Casadio
Lorenzo Benfenati
Alice Tonelli
Benedetto Linguerri
Click here for more info about ENTRA NELLO SPIRITO DI STELLA

(in Italian)

4. Cases on "Basic Values"

Click to view Polo Liceale di Imola "Rambaldi - Valeriani" e "Alessandro da Imola"'s cases