PRESENTATION
The Liceo Laura Bassi was for many years, since its foundation in 1860, a training college and, as
such, it formed the primary school teachers of the whole territory of Bologna. The request for a more qualified and specific certificate along with the progressive adhesion to the European
context, which had already evolved in that direction, has recently obliged the Ministry of Education to demand a degree for the teachers of the primary
schools. This situation put an end to the Italian teacher's college and in the meantime it compelled this institution to look for a development of the experimentation which had just been started in our country.
At first most Italian schools gave way to foreign language courses; social sciences courses have been recently introduced by the Ministry of Public
Education. Yet they had the same origin so they had already acquired the same experiences which were consequently combined with the subjects that had been peculiar to the previous kind of
school.
The courses of foreign languages
The foreign language department was introduced in 1992/93. Four foreign languages are taught in the classes belonging to this
department: English, French, German and Spanish. The students can choose which one will be their first, second or third language and,
anyway, they study them all since the first year (English is generally the first language2 studied at the Liceo).
The curriculum provides subsidiary activities like, for example, theatre courses and exchanges of students with other European
schools.
Exchanges
Our students are granted an exchange experience in the fourth form. The European countries involved in this activity are: Great
Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Denmark and Sweden.
Theatre courses
They have been recently introduced and are meant only for a certain amount of classes that work with their language teachers and a stage manager. Every year there is a public performance in one of the theatres of our town; it includes plays acted in the languages studied in our
school. Another play is performed by our handicapped students. We would like to point out that the theatre classes were first planned by the teachers of these students in order to find out new didactic approaches and
strategies.
The courses of Social Sciences
They were thought and created by our Ministry of Public Education to fill the emptiness originating from the official disappearance of training colleges in 1998
.They attained such a success that we were obliged to find out more room to receive all the young people who wanted to enter our school and we had to open a branch in another building to receive them all and the provincial education office has set up the same course in two of the licei of Bologna.
The core subjects are: philosophy, training in pedagogical skills, two foreign
languages, social science and pedagogy.
Further activities:
two stages are to be carried out during the third and the fourth school
year. So students are allowed to experience real situations occurring in the intellectual world ( for instance in museums , by the editorial staff of
newspapers)
Students are expected to get in touch with those realities and to analyse the organisation and the way in which the working tasks are carried out.
The whole experience then will be analysed at school during the lessons and
materials, such as grids, will be produced processing statistic data got thanks the sites of the European museums on line
(Muséé de l'homme, British Museum).
A further stage experience will take place during the fourth school year in one of the countries belonging to the European Community.
Handicapped students integration
There are some handicapped students attending our liceo. They take part in the class
activities, but each of them follows his/her personal curriculum. Activities as the stage in the library of the
quarter, the cooperation with the newspaper of our institute, the theatre
courses, the computer courses , have particularly been studied for
them.
In our school there are a lot of qualified teachers who take care of them but that experience is also a very important one for all our
students, who are granted the possibility of facing a more complete vision of life.
[Mariagrazia Venturi e
Giorgio Canellini]
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