Pedagogy in the pocket

Pedagogy in the pocket

Silvana Calabrese, Pedagogy in the pocket, Leucotea Editions, Sanremo (Italy) 2017.

     Content

     A journey in which we will invite pedagogy to show its identification. To continue we will ask school to give us the compass to guide us through the different social ages, past, present and future predictions or intentions. Don Lorenzo Milani and students of the School of Barbiana deliver us a map. With the proper tools, we will begin our investigations, analyzing the value of education through social bumps. We will streak the skies of school and academic worlds. 

     It will be a tumultuous flight which will force us to make an emergency landing on an abandoned runway, the attitude to studies. From this point we will make provisions because we need energy to journey along the steep and rough path of vocation for teaching. We will reach a vantage point overlooking the valley of live observation. It will be possible seeing the effects of reading nourishment, of infant capacity in the composition of social and anthropological themes, of fantasy that is a rich repertoire of resources. The reached peak is very high and the sky is ominous: the only path we can take is parachute us in the middle of the storm, a risky practice like educating one’s own child. Once the celestial turbulence ended we will have by then touched the ground, where we relish in the joy of planning projects because they are educational. We return to the city, in a large sports field where we will understand the importance of physical training. We will have a vision in which appear us some children comfortably sitting on a sofa while they watching television alone. Looking towards another direction we will see technological tools that promote distance education, a new frontier of education intent on the unknown. We will wake up from this dream feeling a thump and a noise because will be fallen on our head the best-selling and the least read book: the Bible. At this point we will make a camping and we will find ourselves seated around a fire. We will hear the crackle that will relax us. We will chat and talk about carry out research, doing research and the function of the books. The intellectual level achieved, combined with a spark from the fireplace, will allow us the first real journey into the past, in historical periods and different places. We will meet and hear the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Maria Montessori and Benjamin Spock. Their words will be a source of critical reflections and insights. We will come back in the present and we will stop in a very friendly ambience: the small room of the Middle School “G. Santomauro” where took place my teaching experience and where lies my nostalgia. With the spirit of exploration as lively as that of a little child, we will share on the route of my research. We will observe junctions, as many as are born from reading books and newspapers.

     Strengths

     Being a guide to daily education because the educational process has not rest periods, and if it had the education could not be accomplished.

     Providing the tools needed to face contemporary challenges with a perspective vision that promotes the formulation of predictions. In pedagogy every moment is critical and spends quickly. Every moment is to be consecrated to education.

     The extension to the welfare of the country. Contemporary pedagogy appears in a new guise, that of the child’s guide that is about to become a citizen who looks to his country proudly and that with common sense it lead him into more quiet and reasonable social contexts.

     For what readership

     For the mother, curator of the destinies of the world.

     For the father who will feel encouraged to do their job to the fullest.

     For grandparents who are now very present and influential in the lives of their grandchildren.

     For each baby-sitter self-respecting, in order that she may have a personal copy of the guide that will facilitate her the work.

     For teachers who will find a catharsis from prejudices about them and will find or will seek or create from scratch the vocation for teaching, because for many years they still influence thousands of generations.

     For public employees, so that they find the heat of reconciliation with their duties because they all lead our country toward creating a stable and functioning system.

     For high schools, vessels filled with young people which day by day are in contact with the educational institution and takes the nightlife in clubs, recreational institutions par excellence. Young lives are master of their own existence and unaware of that is in their souls that dwell the strong feelings so sought. With the guidance of Pedagogy in the pocket they can return to the lane of the great circuit of life in which they can qualify as real champions. 

Silvana Calabrese, Pedagogy in the pocket, Leucotea Editions, Sanremo (Italy) 2017.