School, the President of the Consulta Coraggio: “the pandemic has emphasized its importance, as for culture”

“The pandemic, especially as regards schools, has brought out the importance of school teaching, and therefore of culture, but it has also shown the risk of underestimating this fundamental need expressed by our Constitution”. The president of the Constitutional Court, Giancarlo Coraggio, talks about it with the Adnkronos, who today concluded with an online lesson at the Higher Education Institute Tommaso Fiore, in Modugno, in the province of Bari, dedicated to culture and the environment as required by the Article 9 of the Constitution, Together, the cycle of meetings between constitutional judges and schools, in progress since May 3 and aimed at sanctioning the feeling of belonging to the res-publica. “I am increasingly convinced of the choice of culture, and of Article 9 of the Constitution that speaks of it. Not surprisingly, it is also the basis of the latest series of podcasts of the Constitutional Court, Meetings with the world of culture”, he comments Courage recalling how the “difficulties of distance learning, the erratic regional legislation on the opening and closing of schools, if they highlighted the not always adequate awareness of the importance of education, at the same time also made it clear what damage cause insufficient attention to the cultural formation of citizens, as the basic element of a mature democracy “. “It is symptomatic that the sometimes inadequate attention of the institutions towards the school was instead offset by the great attention of students and teachers, as I could also see from today’s meeting with the Tommaso Fiore Higher Education Institute in Modugno, Italy. in the province of Bari. Students and teachers – he concluded – are perfectly aware that school and education are not only a duty but above all a right of young people and citizens “.
The president of the Constitutional Court also expressed himself on the issue of civic education in schools: “I am convinced that civic education does not need specific teaching but, as Minister Patrizio Bianchi said on the occasion of the preparatory meeting of the latter cycle of lessons, must constitute a sort of underlying plot of school teaching “, he said, commenting on the new methods of teaching the subject according to the law of 20 August 2019 n. 92, which has identified three axes around which to rotate the study of Civic Education and instructed the teachers to deepen the various thematic areas in one hour a week. “Ultimately – notes the President of the Council – the first to have The teachers themselves need a knowledge, certainly not in-depth, of the Constitution and I must say that I have found that their commitment in this direction is complete and effective. Of course, meetings with jurists, constitutional judges or teachers of constitutional law. In conclusion, I think that at school we can and should talk about civic education by taking advantage of the most varied ideas offered by history, literature, art and even physical education, as well as with the integration of lessons, even better of dialogues, between students, teachers and constitutionalists. “The Constitutional Court itself – concludes Coraggio – felt the need to open up to society to help promote constitutional education, understood not as a parrot-like repetition of rules, albeit well written, but as a set of values ​​whose awareness is an essential element in the maturation of true citizenship “. (by Roberta Lanzara)