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M.E.LA.  V.E.R.D.E.
(GREEN  APPLE)

MEDITERRANEO  EUROPA:  un  LABORATORIO  per  VIVERE  E  RINNOVARE
la  DIMENSIONE  EUROPEA
(Mediterranean and Europe: a laboratory to live and renew the European dimension)

INTRODUCTION

The Neapolitan schools, listed below, associate in a network in order to carry out the “Mediterraneo: il futuro di una storia” (Mediterranean: the future of a history) E.I.P. Italia project. They share the same project “M.E.LA.  V.E.R.D.E.”, which will be realized through the sub-projects of each partner, according to the aims of the network project.
School, carrying out its eduicational function, has always been compelled to refer constantly, in an implicit or esplicit way, to the shared and accepted values of the society where it operates.
Nowadays there is an increasing demand for education, which requires a reply about vocational guidance and an educational fund of values and experiences the students can draw from in order to adapt themselves to the continuous changes along their lives.
The Project within the educational fund to be given the students has focused the following values: identity/diversity, individuality/solidarity, affectivity/rationality. They will be the guidelines for the daily didactic actvity and school organization. Such values, of course, are to be shared by all the partners in order to be actually applied while carrying out the Project activities.
The aim of the social cohesion attainment inside the teacher-student group is the necessary bonding agent while carrying out any educatiobnal project. Hence the membership feeling starts as well as the citizenship perception, which stimulates the keeping of duties and responsibilities as well as the conscious assertion of  rights.
Methodologies and strategies for the research and  allocation of human, structural and economic resources spring from  these basic choices: school alone, in fact, cannot answer all the education requests and solve contemporary social problems. In our times, characterized by the “globalization” of mankind problems, a country development is linked to the development of the other countries on account of the close and increasiong interconnections and conditionings among the different areas of the planet. As a consequence the main aim of school is the education of the “planetary man”, aware of his roots and able to compare them to the other civilizations in a peaceful and constructive way.
It is important, of course, to revise and reform the educational process in order to answer the new needs of the contemporary world.
School cannot be outside the changed horizon the education of the 2000 citizen is to be realized within.
We will be able to renew ourselves, our Society, our School only if we have the courage “to start from the other” and so “the other” will be no more our enemy.
Indifference, fear, intollerance and racism spring from a negative perception of “the other”, while a new approach, a change, a hope may spring from a critical positive perception.

AIMS

*   opening windows on the knowledge of the civilizations developed around the Mediterranean Sea,    
which has always influenced mankind history. Even if Mediterranean civilizations look dissimilar and far one another, they meet in a constant need for meeting and comparing;
*  establishing workshops for a useful and active knowledge of the peoples and cultures developed around the Mediterranean Sea;
*  elaborating data about the different cultures in order to get a better knowledge and to acquire the ability to participate in the evolutive process of the Mediterranean countries;
*   setting up an emeroteque and a library about the Mediterranean Sea, starting from the studies and the experiences made carrying out the Project.

The schools sharing  the Project agree to set up the following common aims, methods, times, resources and instruments:

FIRST  PHASE – “ To be a citizen at school: from the oneself to the other, to the community “ 
Aims : * acquiring the awareness of the oneself and the other and of the feeling of a cultural and civil 
               belonging;
*  acquiring the awareness of being an active subject of rights and duties;  
         * setting up a micro-society on the model of the macro-society through the survey of the    cultural and social values diffused and reorganized inside the school community, where they will be translated into rules of a civil life in common, training to positive interpersonal and group relationships inside the community, making enriching horizontal relations (among the students and the young of the district), profitable vertical relations (among students, teachers, headmaster, school personnel), intergenerational and institutional relations.

SECOND  PHASE – “ To be a citizen in the belonging society (civitas, region, country) “
Aims : * acquiring the territory historical and cultural identity;
            * knowing the geographical setting, the habitat, the macro and micro-economy of the belonging   
               places;
            * knowing the socio-political evolution from the Agora to the Republic Parliament
            * being a citizen as an active subject of rights and duties in accordance with the rules of the democratic State.
 
THIRD  PHASE – “ To be a citicen of Europe and of the world “
Aims : * being a citizen of Europe: from the home State to the European State, from an economic to a       
               political unit;
            * building up a European citizenship (European aknowledgement  of  educational  credits  and
               qualifications, free circulation of workers);
            * comparing   oneself   with  the  Mediterranean   cultures : customs, arts, handicrafts, religions, 
               economics and politics.

FORMATION  OF  THE  SCHOOL  NETWORK

1 – Partners  are  local,  state bodies,  European  and   Mediterranean  Institutions,  professional 
      authorities, volunteers and anyone interested in the Project.
      Priviliged partners are:
    The Italian and International E.I.P., which have agreed to the proposal of the European Council   promoting the project “ Educazione alla cittadinanza democratica e alla coesione sociale “ (Education to a democratic citizenship and a social cohesion);
    The “  Ville Vesuviane “ Board, which, including the Project in his activities along the Mediterranean coasts, places its structures and its professional collaboration at disposal of  E.I.P. as well as of Neapolitan schools.
    The Italian Education Department and its territorial boards, which will follow the Project development with close attention and will disseminate its products.
    The Neapolitan school network has welcome the European Council proposal as a natural expression of the educational process carried on in Naples, as it fits the historical role this city has had in Europe and in the Mediterranean area for thousands of years.
       Research subjects could be the temple, the square, the market and the bridge, all metaphorical symbolic places common to every Mediterranean civilization.
2 -  Appointment of the Project referents;
3 -  Exchange of  information  among  schools by means  of paper material , meetings, internet and on-
       line connections;
4 -  Comparison  of the results attained by each school and reported on booklets, hypertexts, CDs.

METHODOLOGY

Partners will set up laboratories language, art, handicrafts, daily life, history, ethnic and geopgraphical differences.
Laboratories will be based on meeting people from the countries sharing the Project, who will teach our students the peculiarities of their  historical and geographical “realities”
The Italian students, involved in the Project, will be the protagonists of the transmission of the foundation of the Italian and Neapolitan culture linked to Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.
Any participant in the Project will be a teacher and a student at the same time.
Cultural exchanges will be basic while carrying the Project out, as they will give the opportunity to know the way of living of the other partnres.
Exhibitions of  typical products will be organized in order to show the evolution and the mixture of techniques and styles common to all Mediterranean countries.
Any active methodology letting students be protagonists in learning will be favoured.
All the partner schools commit themselves to let contents and daily didactics be permeated by the Project in order to affect education with a long lasting effect .
DIDACTICS

Aims : 
1 -  acquiring the following cognitive competences :
      Historical – cultural competences : 
-	knowledge of the principles and values of human rights and of a democratic citizenship;
-	knowledge of the Mediterranean cultural identities;
-	knowledge of the social and political organizations of the various Mediterranean countries;
-	knowledge of the educational organizations of the various Mediterranean countries.
     Procedural competences :
-	knowledge of the instruments for the communication of cultural diversities;
-	knowledge of  universal human rights.
     Ethic competences :
-	awareness of the universal value of liberty, equality, solidarity concepts.
     Social competences :
-	knowledge of  Mediterranean languages;
-	speaking Mediterranean languages.

2 –  acquiring the following abilities :
-	seeing one’s cultural values with a sense of proportion;
-	respecting and listening to “the others”;
-	accepting differences and diversities with a positive attitude
-	having positive and lasting interpersonal relations;
-	welcoming the comparison of new ideas;
-	discussing/entering a debate with a constructive attitude;
-	re-examining acts and topics in the light of  universal human rights principles and values;
-	building and carrying out partnerial projects

HISTORY  AND  CIVICS  TEACHING

1 – Programmatic lines :
      a – theoretic – expositive (proceeding by topics)
      b – critical – dialogic (aimed dialogue)
      c – elaborating – planning (planning and monitoring laboratory)

2 – Methods :
      a – history seen by “the others”
      b – history seen by “the weekest”
      c – history seen throughout the evolution of the social and political organization
      d – comparison between historical evolution and present condition

RELIGION  TEACHING

Some significant elements common to different religions will be examined in a parallel and comparative way, instead teaching each religion and jts features as something unique without any link to the other ones.
Didactic instruments will be : holy texts, history and geography of the communities belonging to each religion, feasts, food, clothes, holy objects, religious art.

MUSIC  AND  ART  TEACHING

Contents :
-	ethnic music
-	plastic and figurative arts
-	dancing
-	sacred places and buildings
-	monuments
-	town / city planning

SCIENCES  TEACHING

Contents :
-	ecology
-	science of diversities
-	scientific and technical development of the Mediterranean civilization
-	scientific and technical legacy of the Mediterranean countries

Methods :
-	teaching instruments for young pupils will be fairy tales and miths as means to educate them to recognise analogies and differences

INSTRUMENTS

-	books (novels, stories, poems)
-	school texts
-	specialized texts
-	video-cassettes
-	multimedia
-	CDs
-	authentic evidences and testimonies
-	language laboratories
-	photocopies

METHODOLOGY

-	participative approach to learning
-	student / teacher interaction
-	laboratory activities
-	frontal lesson
-	brain-storming
-	role-playing

PLACES

-	school structures
-	territorial structures

TIME

-	Project activities will be curricular and extracurricular
-	3 years    ⇒    450 hours

PRODUCTS

-	booklets
-	photos
-	video-cassettes
-	exhibitions

At the end of the project students will visit one of the partners ( 5 days ) 

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I.P.S.S.A.R.  “I. Cavalcanti”  -  Dirigente Scolastico  :   dott.ssa Carmina  Benigno
                                                   traduzione                  :    prof.ssa Loredana Rizzi