Renew, reorganize and transform school environments into places where learning can follow new paths also thanks to the interaction between teachers, children and parents. This is the objective of the Fare Scuola project, born three years ago thanks to the collaboration between Enel Cuore Onlus and the Reggio Children Foundation – Loris Malaguzzi Center, which has led to the implementation of 50 interventions in kindergartens and primary schools throughout the country, number destined to rise to 60 by the summer. The design of the interventions was carried out by 26 architects; and 140 teachers and school principals have taken part in training courses for the implementation of new educational paths which have involved more than 9.300 children since the start of the project.
The balance sheet of the three years of the project was presented today at MAXXI - National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome - by Patrizia Grieco, President of Enel and Enel Cuore, and by Carla Rinaldi, President of the Reggio Children Foundation - Loris Malaguzzi Center . The event was also attended by the President of the MAXXI Foundation, Giovanna Melandri, who announced the creation of an intervention within the museum's spaces specifically designed and dedicated to young and old visitors. The Fare Scuola project will continue with a further 10 interventions, which will be carried out by the summer of 2019 in the areas affected by the earthquake in central Italy.
"With Fare Scuola we wanted to make a concrete contribution to placing the school at the center of the community, enhancing its role as educator and strengthening its creative potential - he says Patricia Grieco, President Enel. “The result went beyond our expectations and showed us how through the direct involvement of teachers, families and pedagogical experts it is possible to respond to the educational needs of children and activate a virtuous path of innovation and change, which we hope will be easily replicated. It is a process that we want to continue to nurture by bringing this experience also to the areas that were hit by the earthquake last year because we think that the school has a fundamental role in the "reconstruction" of everyday life".
“School can in fact be an essential engine for promoting change, for educating about change. And one is educated to change only if change is produced in daily experience - he specifies Carla Rinaldi, President of the Reggio Children Foundation. “Intervening on spaces means intervening on the relationship between teaching and learning. We could speak of the "One Hundred Languages of Space", paraphrasing those "One Hundred Languages of Children" which are at the basis of the Reggio Emilia Approach. Space speaks, conditions, allows, inhibits, space does not contain thought but is itself part of thought. “Fare scuola”, as we have called this project, suggests that school is not given once and for all. The school is a right that must be built day after day, brick by brick, practicing it in its spaces, in teaching, in relationships between people, in relationships with the environment and the territory, that is, in doing school ".
The "Fare Scuola" project aims to give new life to school environments, institutions which, in most cases, are located in suburban areas, putting schools at the forefront of tackling the major issues of social discomfort. The designers were guided by the idea of rethinking the school as a space where learning can take place with new teaching and training methods. On the basis of the various needs identified together with the institutions involved in the project, the educational laboratories were modernized and the courtyards reorganised; in some cases winter gardens have been created and the entrance spaces of the schools have been transformed into squares, conceived as meeting points for children, parents and teachers.
The work carried out by Enel Cuore Onlus and the Reggio Children Foundation - Loris Malaguzzi Center has led to important results, making use of the experience of the Electricity Group in the sector of energy requalification and efficiency and the in-depth pedagogical experience of Reggio Emilia .
The interventions proposed in the territories should not be read as mere material interventions: "Doing School" above all means involving teachers and families in a process of interaction to be ever closer to children in their learning path. The pedagogical aspect of the project looks at the school not only as a building, but in a broader sense as a cultural and social garrison of the community and of the territory, to be made increasingly protagonist.
