Comenius Project European Children’s Rights Scuola Media Pirandello Patti Italy

We did some research on the web, about famous Italian people who have defended children’s rights.

We made some posters and made a PowerPoint about the person we liked most.

Don Lorenzo Milani We like him because he proposed a new teaching method in the 1950s which was, and still is, really innovative and cool.

Lorenzo Milani was born in 1923 to a rich family. Later he became a priest and this is why he was called “Don Milani”. He was an educator and in 1947 he set up his first “school of people” open to poor children, catholic or not.

This was a scandle for the church and he was sent into”exile” to Barbiana del Mugello, a small village in Tuscany where he continued his educational activities, opening a new school.

The school in Barbiana started with 10 students who were farmers and shepherds, from 11 to 13 years old, with a schedule of 8h a day, six to seven days a week, with the older students teaching the younger ones through cooperative learning.

The motto of his school was “ I care “ He took care of poor students who failed in the public school system. He created a full-time school. He motivated the students who were unmotivated.

They read and evaluated national and international news. The aim was to analyze events critically and to become more confident in order to face life without fear and be able to solve problems. The curriculum included the analysis and discussion of the children’s own lives.

Foreign language teaching and acquisition was very important and students went abroad to work in various cities to learn English and at the same time to broaden their horizons.

They had many labs. Artists, farmers, scientists, artisans and professionals were invited to give a hand and explain their activities.

At the end, eight students coordinated by Don Milani, wrote a book “ Letter to a teacher” where they give advice to an immaginary teacher putting forth what they believed were the injustices of the Italian school system, expecially towards poor students.

The school closed when Don Milani died in 1967 and it was the end of a fantastic experience but the echoes have remained.

The book “ Letter to a teacher” has been translated into several languages and Don Milani’s teaching method is still today considered as a contemporary method.

We think that the motto “ I care ” should be the motto of all teachers.

Bye bye by the Italian students of class 3 C