Newsletter8

newsletternewsletterN°3 – July 2011P.IN.O.K.I.O.Pupils for INnOvation as a Key to Intercultural and social inclusiOn

INTERCULTURAL WORKSHOPS AND

CREATIVITY LABS IN PESCIA SCHOOLS

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THE ACTIVITY OF OFFICINA CREATIVA INTERCULTURALE IN

PALERMO’S SCHOOLSp.4

P.IN.O.K.I.O. INTERCULTURAL WORKSHOPS AND CREATIVITY LABS IN PESCIA SCHOOLSPescia pre-primary and primary schools that take part in the P.IN.O.K.I.O. project have 30% pupils from abroad, or with a non-Italian family background. That is why intercultural experience is an everyday experience in such classes, and organizing intercultural workshop is under some respects at hands reach.

Yet there are some aspects one has to take into account. Be-ing under the children’s and teachers’ focus can be uneasy for most people, sometimes up to the point that it prevents the parents from cooperating with school, or making it dif-fi cult and unpleasant when meeting with a school group. This uneasiness may pass on to their children, who may feel as a disadvantage the fact of being “special”, “different” in some respects from the majority of their schoolmates.So, it is important to fi nd ways of coming together that combine differences and novelty in order to make both adults and children feel welcome, and make all the partici-

pants meet on a common ground beyond the differences. If you fi nd such a key, any kind of learning and intellectual or social growth is easier and more lasting.

Such keys have partly been found in the P.IN.O.K.I.O. pro-ject proposal: story-telling. Story-telling reunites and unites both physically and mentally, as teller and audience are positively focused on each other. The story that is told is the same for everyone, yet each listener can give his/her per-sonal output to the inputs received from the narration. In this way, somebody’s story becomes all and everyone’s story. This also prepares the ground for further didactical work to be done later in class.

Many of the intercultural workshops had a parent (mostly mother) from abroad, or with a life experience of long-liv-ing abroad. Parents came from many different countries, according to the great variety of the pupils’ background in Pescia schools: Romania, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Alba-nia, Switzerland, Russia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, Argentina, Chile, Brazil – only to mention some of the countries. They came into the classes and told both fi ctional stories (mostly folk tales, yet also literary ones) or life experience of special, typical moments of their culture, in Italian and in their mother tongue. There was also a lot of singing or danc-ing, as music easily overcomes language differences and is a very pleasant approach to a foreign language for children. Stories were often connected to a particular moment of the year (spring and spring traditions being a highlight), or with some specifi cities of the country of the tellers (for in-stance, Dracula for Romania, ancient Egyptian civilization and Arab writing for Egypt).

Another favourite way to “connect positively different cul-tures” is of course food. Many adult visitors, as they told about their country traditions, also brought along some tra-

newsletterN°1 – FEBRUARY 2010P.IN.O.K.I.O.Pupils for INnOvation as a Key to Intercultural and social inclusiOn

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ditional food – cookies or other sweets, typical of their coun-try in general or of a specifi c celebration: arrival of spring, Easter or Christmas, New Year etc. In those schools which have a kitchen facility, the cakes were prepared and baked on the spot, sometimes by the parents alone, sometimes with the help of or completely by the children under the direction of the visiting adult.

Working together with a tangible aim is also a good way of connecting people. Not only making cookies, also typical Bulgarian wool dolls or Romanian spring keepsakes (called martisuare) making have been moments of mutual learning and attention for both children and adults, with teachers and even the principal deeply involved in the activity.

An immediate consequence of the parents’ visits was that their children, and other pupils with a non-Italian back-ground, apparently felt prouder and more open in showing their non-Italian background.

In some primary school classes a special moment came with the visit of some teenager from Finland and China, who were in Italy under the guide of an association that works on youth mobility programmes. To meet boys and girls that were willing to know Italian culture through them and offer them a “fl avour” of their own countries was very motivating for the pupils; the smaller age difference created a relaxed and merry atmosphere.

The visits were always connected with the forthcoming Creativity Labs. They were class or larger group workshops that the teachers built up to synthesize the different activi-ties content and meaning, giving children the possibility to: try out themselves with different means of expression; merge different inputs to create something new; acquire or improve personal and social skills according to the key com-petences suggested by the P.IN.O.K.I.O. project.

When the meetings with parents started, classes had already chosen their favourite narrations among those suggested by

the project Scientifi c Committee, and had worked on them to produce some e-books or games. For instance, in pre-primary school a memory game (essentially consisting in images matching, it is a very suitable game for children who can not yet read) were devised on the basis of the Bremen Musicians’ tale. Another pre-primary school who selected Pippi Longstockings’ story made a snake-and-ladders-like table game (which the school itself has had reproduced to give it to each pupil at the end of school year), where Pippi travels around the world to fi nd herself in situations that might be positive, neutral, slightly negative or negative. They are distinguished by colours, and this is a way of acquiring social skills for the very young players of the game. A more complex game with social content: “Right or Wrong? Tell it with Pippi” has been conceived in the primary school. Nine-year old pupils merged a physical game (members of two teams have to compete in snatching a small fl ag that hangs in the middle of the game fi eld) with intellectual activities. To win one must not necessarily be the quickest one. After you snatched the fl ag, you have to see what kind of action (there are many fl ags, each with an action written and de-picted on it with a scene from Pippi Longstocking’s story) you have on your fl ag and tell it if it is right or wrong.

Technological skills were also acquired: besides baking or handcrafting objects, older children got acquainted with such tools as Google maps through tracking Pippi’s travels with it. Eggs-painting, or the making of table games were also moments of personal ability growth and enforcing.

Books are often in the focus in different ways. E-books were also made on the basis of the tale told by a Russian mother, or by a schoolgirl with a Chinese background. A book called “Sapori dal mondo (=Tastes from all over the world)” has been written under the direction of the children in one of the pre-primary schools were meetings with foreign parents had been marked by sweet-tasting experiences. Thanks to the Egyptian father, all the children of the class he met now have a personal cardboard bookmark, with the reproduction of an image from ancient Egypt they chose and pasted on it, and their name written in Arabic writing.

The products of these Creativity Labs are now on exhibition in the schools, and will stay there until the end of June, when parents will go and collect their children’s school report. Two primary schools (200 children attending) also prepared collective performances (children aged 7-11 involved) that take origin from all the work done in the P.IN.O.K.I.O. framework. There are three performances on the move: two musicals, - one from Pinocchio’s Adventures


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and one from the Bremen Town Musicians’ tale - and a sing-ing-and-dancing show with songs and dances from different countries. Costumes and scenes were made with the partici-pation and help of parents of Italian or non-Italian origin... without forgetting the hard (yet, according to them, very rewarding) work from the teachers. More information and images on Pescia schools P.IN.O.K.I.O. work and especially on intercultural workshop on their P.IN.O.K.I.O. blog: http://www.pinokioproject.eu/blog

P.IN.O.K.I.O. PROJECT IN SICILY!THE ACTIVITY OF OFFICINA CREATI-VA INTERCULTURALE IN PALERMO’S SCHOOLS

Another interesting P.IN.O.K.I.O.’s experience was under-taken in Palermo thanks to the collaboration of Offi cina Creativa Interculturale (O.C.I. - http://www.casaoffi cina.it/). As an ‘associated partner’, therefore with different tasks and responsibilities than the other organizations in-volved, O.C.I. was not obliged to implement the same activi-ties. Nevertheless pupils and teachers of Palermo’s schools have been enthusiastically involved in the project and then the results achieved are very interesting and signifi cant for the P.IN.O.K.I.O. project! In Sicily the testing phase has been organised in the Didactical Direction ‘F. P. Perez’ State Circle – located in Palermo (IT).

Below school, teachers and number of pupils involved. TESTING PHASE – SICILY

PRIMARY SCHOOLS: TEACHERS SECTIONS PUPILS

‘Francesco Paolo Perez’ - Via Oreto, 106 – Palermo

2 2 33

Central school ‘F. P. Perez’ – Piazza Perez, 1 – Palermo

1 1 21

TOTAL 3 3 54

O.C.I., with Maura Tripi and Giuseppe Rizzuto supported by the CIRDFA team – Cà Foscari University – organized and trained teachers till January 2011. Training concerned the implementation of P.IN.O.K.I.O. methodology, which consists of the development of some of key-competencies through an innovative pedagogical approach focused on fairy tales and children’s literature, combined with the use of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, podcasts, e-book audio and movie.

As known, P.IN.O.K.I.O. is focused in particular on the de-velopment of 5 key-competencies (2006/962/EC), indicat-ed as useful and necessary for “personal development, ac-tive citizenship, social inclusion and employment” towards the intercultural dialogue and social inclusion. They are:- Communication in the mother tongue - Learning to learn- Social and civic competencies- Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship- Cultural awareness and expression

In this regard fairy-tales in P.IN.O.K.I.O. have been used for highlighting specifi c features of situations and charac-ters such as, for instance, aspects related to autonomy and initiative skills of the characters (ref. Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship), refl ection and valorization of diversity, the importance of friendship (ref. Social and civic competen-cies), the ability to solve problems, how and who helps the characters in learning (ref. Learning to learn) etc... All the activities have supported at the same time the improvement of Communication in the mother tongue skills, both for the Italian and migrant children, in addition to valorizing fairy tales and stories belonging to other cultures (ref. Cultural awareness and expression).

After the teachers’ training, according to these P.IN.O.K.I.O.’s assumptions, in Palermo the Intercul-tural Workshops and Creativity Labs have started with the involvement of all the participants. On the one hand Intercultural Workshops aimed at promoting a dialogue


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among different cultures and then they involved children, migrant children and their parents. In this regard Intercul-tural Workshops are mainly focused on the development of key-competencies such as: learning to learn, social and civic competencies, cultural awareness and expression. On the other hand, the Creativity Labs aimed in particular at the develop-ment of creativity skills for the children and therefore they are mainly concentrated instead on the improvement of the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. Across all of these activities lays the improvement of communication in the mother tongue skill.

In Palermo the Intercultural Workshops have involved, from March 2011, many parents coming from different countries due to the presence of pupils from Morocco, Ghana, Mauri-tius, Romania and Poland. In this regard for instance, Tariq and his mother Sadia have told the children and the other parents the fairy-tale “Heina and the Ghul’, using Arabic and Italian languages. After that everyone drank mint tea with Sicilian biscuits and Arabic cakes cooked by the moth-ers and teachers. Other Workshops were focused again on fairy-tales coming from different cultures, giving the par-ents the opportunity to refl ect on the importance of fairy-tales symbolic dimension to discover and express them-selves. At the same time, children were motivated to draw and create movies and e-books audio on the P.IN.O.K.I.O. web site, beside blogs on their schools’ activities.

In May the Creativity Labs involved children and their teachers, especially for the creation of games, such as: - “Memory and the Ugly Duckling” made with cards rep-

resenting the fairy-tale’s characters identifi ed by children- “ The Great Game of Goose” where children should follow

the ordinary rules of the game, but with boxes inspired by the sequences of the selected fairy-tales

- “The new Story of the Ugly Duckling”, reinvented by chil-dren through language games and creative writing tech-niques.

All of these activities aim at promoting reciprocal know-ledge and signifi cant skills, making then the P.IN.O.K.I.O. acronym/title as a reality: “Pupils for INnOvation as a Key to Intercultural and social inclusiOn”!

For further information, please write to: offi [email protected]


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www.pinokioproject.eu

Lifelong Learning Programme

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication refl ects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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