Ali della colomba
Workshop programme for teachers from Palestine.
Duration of workshop: 2 weeks
When: first two weeks of July 2009
Number of teachers in group: 15 - 18
Days devoted to training: 10 working days
Time: 9 AM-1 PM – 2 PM to 5:30 PM
Locations: Cadiai (Via Boldrini 8, Bologna) and early childhood services (primary and nursery schools)
Parties involved: CADIAI Cooperativa Sociale, ARCI, Municipality of Bologna, ECRC, etc.
Purpose: examine Bologna’s childhood services to receive input and develop the following themes:
1. raising children: theoretical and cultural premises of the Emilian tradition;
2. integrating educational and teaching activities, organizing spaces, tools and materials;
3. relations with families and support for mothers and fathers;
4. learning to live in peace and to manage conflicts.
Organizational structure
Service workshops
The programme calls for the organization of 6-8 visits to services (primary and nursery schools), mostly in the morning, because during the summer the afternoon is devoted mainly to rest and free play and therefore would not offer many elements of interest to teachers.
Five or six workshop sites (from among municipal and cooperative services) need to be found, where the teachers should go in groups of 3 and then separately visit the various sections. We will try to find operators at the service sites who speak English or Arabic and who can mediate dialogue among the teachers in order to promote information exchange. In any case, the time will be devoted primarily to observation, and therefore minimum mediation will be needed.
Teaching activities
We foresee 6-8 afternoons of classroom activities to reflect on the experience, with work in subgroups and lessons held by service pedagogues plus a few “distinguished experts.”
The lessons will be devoted to the themes listed above. The questions and themes to be dealt with (in relation to the real training needs of Palestinian teachers) will be defined in greater detail after our mission to Palestine has concluded.
The classroom will have a tutor who will organize the activity and, especially, the discussion groups, and will be assisted by an interpreter.
The first and last day will be devoted to socialising, greetings, presentations, etc.
We believe it would be appropriate to include one or two visits to the Documentation and Training Laboratory of the Municipality of Bologna in order to explore documentation of the educational experience and teaching tools.
Although the Palestinian teachers will not be able to directly observe teaching activities during the summer, this can be partially compensated by access to the interesting materials available at the documentation centre at via Cà Selvatica.
A mini training course involving the Centre’s staff could be organized.
Along with the training activity, we intend to organize other opportunities to meet and study with local operators. This will broaden the experience, with meetings between communities and cultures to provide mutual support.
ARCI and the Municipality of Bologna may make their extensive relational network available so that the Palestinian teachers may learn about other social resources that offer children educational and social opportunities: ARCI clubs, Sala Borsa Library, the library network, children’s theatres, etc.
The “Bologna Città Educativa” project, by means of which the Municipality of Bologna (in co-operation with Bologna University) intends to re-launch its formative and pedagogic role in order to satisfy new needs and to valorise the many public and private after-school programmes now being offered, can provide an opportunity to enter the widened educational network.
The fact that the workshop will be held in the summer could be an opportunity to present recreational services and projects for children offered in Bologna (for example, the holiday accommodations system).
On the strictly business side, we intend to involve Legacoop Bologna and, in particular, social cooperatives to devote time to the idea of the cooperative as a means to promote one’s professional activity and to achieve one’s personal and social goals (modelled on the Coopyright project).
