EXCLUSIV! Bomba pe piata imobiliara din Iasi. In joc sunt 25 de hectare amplasate intr-o zona vanata din oras
Informatie prezentata in exclusivitate de reporterii Cotidianului Buna Ziua Iasi – BZI • Este vorba despre o adevarata bomba pe piata imobiliara din oras • Astfel, intr-un areal natural exclusivist din Iasi, vanat de numerosi oameni cu bani sau dezvoltatori in constructii, proprietarul faimosului loc a reusit intabularea a inca 25 de hectare • Este vorba despre Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” – UAIC si de Gradina Botanica „Anastasie Fatu”
O adevarata bomba pe piata imobiliara din oras! Conducerea Universitatii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” (UAIC) din Iasi a reusit intabularea a inca 25 hectare, tocmai in Gradina Botanica „Anastasie Fatu„. „Vorbim de lansarea procedurii pentru intabularea a inca 24.8 hectare in Gradina Botanica. Acum, dupa un proces derulat in ultimii trei ani, avem peste 60 de hectare intabulate si operatiunea de securizare juridica va continua conform legii. Gradina Botanica este de interes strategic pentru conducerea Universitatii „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iasi si vrem sa ramâna o oaza de verdeata pentru ieseni. Daca este sa ne gandim ca vorbim de aproximativ 80 hectare total in Gradina, putem observa ca, doar in trei ani, am reusit sa intabulam 36 de hectare si nu ne vom opri aici! Vom continua procesul”, a precizat prof. univ. dr. Mihaela Onofrei, prorector pentru activitati studentesti si parteneriate cu mediul economic si sectorul public la „Cuza”.
Interesant este ca, in actele oficiale, figureaza doar o mica parte dintre personajele care au mii de metri patrati in cel mai frumos si ravnit teren din oras – Gradina Botanica. Inclusiv un fost primar al urbei a pus mana pe aproximativ 11 mii de metri patrati aici.
Concret, documentele inregistrate arata ca (in special pe strada Podgoriilor – n.r.) au proprietati urmatorii: 2.000 metri patrati – Vasile si Eugenia Gaburiac, 393.90 metri patrati – Livia Ana Saven, 1.511 metri patrati – Vasile Apetrei, SC Imobil Class SRL cu 1.300 metri patrati, SC Graniti Design SRL cu 1.000 metri patrati si inca o asemenea suprafata, Maria Florea – 1.000 metri patrati.
Pe de alta parte, fostul primar al Iasului, Ionel Onofras, cu fosta sotie, Marina, detinea 10.902 metri patrati, transferate recent catre fiul Tudor Codrin Onofras.
De asemenea, 1.300 metri patrati sunt detinute de Anca Mariana Vlasin, adjudecate de Alina Estera Ifrim, iar 1,300 metri patrati, initial detinute de Gabriela Fechet si Valentin Iulian Botez, au intrat in proprietatea lui Andrei Rusu. Pe langa toate acestea, inclusiv la acest moment exista cereri de punere in posesie pentru alte 44 de hectare in Gradina. Doi dintre mostenitorii boierului Badarau, Simona Missir si Dumitru Contoloru, alaturi de Medeea Schenller solicita sa fie improprietariti cu 25 de hectare.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Peste 10 milioane de euro pentru refacerea unei importante cladiri de la Universitatea de Stiinte Agricole
Guvernul Romaniei a decis alocarea unei importante sume legate de reabilitarea unui pavilion din cadrul Universitatii de Stiinte Agricole si Medicina Veterinara „Ion Ionescu de la Brad”. Astfel, Executivul va aloca o parte din cei 48,8 milioane de lei (peste 10 milioane de euro) necesari pentru reabilitarea Pavilionului Central de la Facultatea de Agricultura din Copou.
„Finantarea obiectivului de investitii se va realiza din veniturile proprii ale Universitatii de Stiinte Agricole si Medicina Veterinara «Ion Ionescu de la Brad» din Iasi si, în completare, de la bugetul de stat, prin bugetul Ministerului Educatiei Nationale, în limita sumelor aprobate anual cu aceasta destinatie, precum si din alte surse legal constituite, conform programelor de investitii publice aprobate potrivit legii”, se arata in proiectul de hotarare intocmit de Guvern.
Finantarea se va realiza etapizat, pe urmatorii trei ani. In primul an se vor aloca 10 milioane de lei, in anul doi se vor aloca 16 milioane de lei, iar in anul trei se vor aloca aproape 8 milioane de lei, durata lucrarilor fiind de 26 de luni. Restul banilor vor fi alocati de beneficiar.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
Cambridge teaching staff to protest over insecure work during open days
Casual contracts causing extreme levels of personal and financial hardship, union claims
Teaching staff at Cambridge University are to hold protests during open days this week to alert parents and prospective students to the problem of insecure employment at the institution.
Two-thirds of Cambridge teaching staff are paid by the hour and three-quarters do not have a contract, according to the University and College Union (UCU). Protesters say the precarious nature of their work is impacting on mental health and some are struggling to pay their bills.
On Thursday, protesters will stage a bike parade around the university, with banners, flags and music, and hand out leaflets highlighting “exploitation” of teachers, as well as a 19.7% gender pay gap at Cambridge. The sector average is 15.1% average.
“We haven’t taken the decision to protest at the open days lightly,” said the Cambridge UCU representative, Jenny Marchant. “But the university needs to understand that a true world-class institution respects its staff.
“Cambridge prides itself on its unique model of teaching based on one-to-one or small-group supervisions and the way this model has been developed has led to the exploitation of staff.
“We have staff that are suffering from extreme levels of financial and personal hardship. Some don’t have enough money to pay for food or rent, while others are seeking to leave the sector because they can’t make ends meet.”
One academic paid hourly to teach at Cambridge said: “There is no job security because there are no contracts and the pay, once the preparation time is factored in, often equates to less than the minimum wage.
“There is also not enough work to make up a full-time job. This, when one considers living costs in Cambridge, means that it is almost impossible to subsist without either a second income or a private income.
“I came to Cambridge as an undergraduate from a non-selective state school. At the time, I thought that I was being aspirational; I now realise that I would have been better off stacking shelves in my local supermarket.”
Staff at Cambridge are not alone. Casualisation has transformed employment in the higher education sector in recent years. A new UCU report based on a survey of almost 4,000 casualised staff found that many are being forced to do multiple jobs just to survive.
Some have put off long-term plans such as starting a family or buying a house because of the lack of job security. More than two-thirds of respondents (71%) said their mental health has been damaged by insecure employment. More than two-fifths (43%) said it had affected their physical health.
The report warns casual contracts are also having a detrimental impact on research and the education students receive. One respondent told the UCU they do three jobs at any one time and never know when they will be paid. Others said that because they are not entitled to sick pay, they cannot afford to take time off when they are unwell.
UCU’s acting general secretary, Paul Cottrell, said: “Students would be shocked to learn that many of their lecturers are forced to take on multiple jobs and are struggling to pay the bills. Universities need to understand this is a real problem that must be dealt with, not excused or underplayed.”
Commenting on the open day protests, Cambridge University said there were ongoing discussions with the unions to address concerns about the use of fixed-term and casual contracts. It added: “A working group, which includes union representatives, has met on an almost monthly basis and we believe that we are continuing to make progress. We remain committed to working with the unions to try to resolve these issues.”
Publicație : The Guardian
Standardised admissions tests are irredeemably flawed
Supplementing SAT scores with an ‘environmental context dashboard’ will not overcome the influence of non-academic factors, says Jessica Welburn Paige
In the US, a college degree is a central factor in social mobility. Individuals with a four-year degree earn more and experience lower unemployment rates than the rest of the population. In addition, earning a college degree is associated with greater job satisfaction and greater career mobility and satisfaction.
Most four-year colleges and universities require applicants to take one of the standardised tests designed to evaluate their academic abilities and potential for success. Yet exams such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Testing Exam (ACT) have proved to be far from objective measures. Scores are often linked to the applicant’s level of disadvantage, including their family background, race and access to economic resources.
The College Board, which administers the SAT, has acknowledged that background factors may create inequalities in test performance. In a recent effort to compensate, it has created an “environmental context dashboard”. The dashboard – which has been referred to by some media outlets as an “adversity score” – includes data about the type of neighbourhood the student is from (such as poverty level, median family income) and about their high school (such as the percentage of students receiving free and reduced-price lunches). It can be viewed by college admissions officers, but is not available to the student.
This move may be the most important step the College Board has yet taken to acknowledge the potential limits of the SAT. However, it does little to resolve many of the exam’s core problems. Perhaps most significantly, it does little to tackle the factors that drive inequality in standardised test scores.
The ways that background factors can affect standardised test performance are varied and, at times, complex. For example, prominent psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson have explored the role that stereotypes can play. Specifically, they have shown that if members of stigmatised groups are exposed to negative stereotypes about their group and its academic achievement before taking the exam, the experience may lower their test score. It is difficult to prevent this from happening given the systemic racism that pervades American society.
Other challenges may include persistent racial and economic school segregation, which creates inequality in access to educational opportunities, and racist school tracking decisions – putting students on different educational tracks based on their academic performance – that disadvantage students of colour by excluding them from college preparatory courses.
Because of its role in admissions, the College Board is one of the most powerful players in higher education, with tremendous resources at its disposal. Although it is technically a non-profit, it has annual revenue of more than $1 billion (£788 million). This is drawn largely from the administration of its exams, which also include the Pre-SAT (usually administered to high school students in 10th and 11th grades) and Advanced Placement exams (subject-area high school exams, high score in which can be used for college credit). If the College Board is truly committed to ameliorating inequality, it could devote more of its resources to improving the quality of education that students receive before college. This might include helping to diminish inequalities in access to educational opportunities and working to end school tracking.
There is also significant potential for abuse of the environmental context dashboard. Because it flags inequalities, it also highlights factors that are often used to discriminate against people. For example, drawing more attention to neighbourhood context could make it easier to discriminate against students from particular types of areas. The information in the dashboard can also be used to create stereotypes about students based on background characteristics. Biases can often operate at the subconscious level, so even seemingly well-intentioned admissions officers may misuse information in a way that penalises students.
The fact is that because they are influenced by a number of factors that have nothing to do with academic ability, standardised tests are fundamentally flawed. Adding an environmental context dashboard that admissions staff can use at their discretion to interpret a student’s scores does nothing to change this. Research has shown that other components of a college application, such as high school grades, may be better predictors of success in higher education. Thus, if the goal is to truly level the playing field in admissions, the elimination of standardised testing altogether would be far more productive.
In fact, a number of colleges and universities have taken this route, making the SAT and ACT optional. They have observed no change in their student performance; recent research confirms that they have maintained rigorous academic environments while diversifying their student bodies.
Thus, while the College Board may believe that the addition of its environmental context dashboard is an important step towards ameliorating inequality in the college admissions process, it serves to highlight the problems with standardised tests. As a result, questions about their usefulness have become more significant.
When scores need to be explained by a host of factors that are outside a student’s control, it is time to look towards other ways to measure academic achievement and potential.
Publicație : The Times
Casual academics ‘work double the hours they are paid for’
Some hourly paid and part-time academics may be effectively earning less than the minimum wage, says University and College Union
Part-time academics in UK universities are working double the hours that they get paid for, according to a study that warns that casualisation brings “shame” to the sector.
Data on 1,568 part-time teaching staff, collected in a survey by the University and College Union and published on 4 July, showed that respondents were contracted to work for a mean average of 14 and a half hours per week. However, because their contracted hours did not allow enough time for preparation, marking and other activities, they estimated that they actually worked 26 hours – meaning that 11 and a half hours, or 44.6 per cent of their working time, was unpaid. On the median average, half of part-time staff’s labour was unpaid.
In effect, the UCU said, this meant that the hourly rate of pay for part-time academics was radically lower than their on-paper salary and was, in many cases, dangerously close to the minimum wage. For example, a part-time lecturer contracted to work 10 hours a week at a rate of £18.70 an hour who actually puts in 20 hours’ work would be earning £9.35 an hour in reality.
Jane Thompson, a bargaining and negotiations official at the UCU, said: “Employers need to recognise the full cost of providing teaching and stop trying to provide these services on the cheap, at a cost to both staff and students.”
About 27,500 people, including academics and some support staff, were employed by universities on zero-hours contracts last year, according to data released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency. More than a third (38 per cent) of all part-time academics were on hourly paid contracts, the figures showed, while one in three academics was on a fixed-term contract.
The UCU data on hourly pay were drawn from a wider survey of 3,802 “casualised” higher education staff, which found that 84.6 per cent of respondents had considered leaving the sector, with lack of job security being the main motivation. More than four out of five said that their contractual status made it hard to make long-term family plans (82.6 per cent) or financial commitments (83.2 per cent), and nearly half (48.5 per cent) held at least one additional job in the sector in order to make ends meet.
One respondent said that they lived “in limbo”. “[Universities] know we’re desperate, and they use us. I look like a crazy person on any financial applications. I have a minimum of three jobs at any one time, and I never know what or when I’m getting paid,” the person said.
Seventy-one per cent of respondents said their mental health had been affected by the stress of working on an insecure contract, with 43 per cent reporting an impact on their physical health.
Another respondent claimed that they were “tired, depressed and struggl[ing] to cope”. “I worry constantly what will happen if I am sick or don’t manage to find enough work. Sometimes the casual work which is offered gets taken in less than a minute, so I end up constantly checking my emails and afraid to leave my computer to get a drink or go to the loo in case I miss the email,” the academic said.
Some academics complained that they were paid only for the actual delivery of teaching hours. Respondents said that they did not have enough paid time to prepare for their classes (67.1 per cent agreed), keep in touch with the latest scholarship (75.3 per cent) or give students the attention and feedback they needed (71 per cent).
Marking was a particular problem – 72.6 per cent said they did not have enough time for this – with several respondents pointing out that although they were paid to mark assignments at the rate of three an hour, it could take up to an hour to grade one script and draft feedback.
All this had a knock-on effect on academics’ ability to build a research profile, with 80.9 per cent saying their own scholarship had been damaged by their having to work on short-term contracts.
Jo Grady, the UCU’s general secretary-elect, said universities were “digging the grave of the sector” if they did not address the problem of casualisation. The survey results were released as the union announced fresh ballots for industrial action over pay and pensions, to be held through September and October.
The report recommends that the Office for Students require English universities to publish figures on the proportion of teaching being done by hourly paid staff, and that research councils make employment of staff on open-ended contracts a condition of research grants.
The Universities and Colleges Employers’ Association said the UCU report “points to some important concerns”, which are “taken seriously by individual universities, with many reviewing the operation of arrangements for their hourly paid colleagues”.
“Universities always want to ensure their colleagues, whatever contract they are on, feel that they are appropriately rewarded and supported to give their best for students.”
Publicație : The Times
Accept lecture capture despite attendance drop, says dean
More than half of academics surveyed said being videoed makes them less spontaneous, but importance to students is clear
One of the biggest studies of its kind to date has concluded that although the introduction of lecture capture does lead to reduced attendance, academics must accept that students see it as a valuable part of the learning experience.
Video recording of teaching is now common on most Western campuses, but it remains a contentious issue for some academics, who have raised concerns about issues ranging from intellectual property rights to the use of footage to undermine industrial action, as well as the impact on students’ attendance.
Efforts to get a clear answer on the last point have often been thwarted by the use of self-reported attendance data and by small sample sizes. But new research conducted at the University of Leeds draws on data across a whole institution following the installation of lecture capture technology and finds that the availability of video footage does cause a drop in attendance.
The paper, published in Computers & Education, says that although attendance at lectures that were not recorded was 85.7 per cent, this dropped to 81 per cent when videos were available.
In a survey of staff, 53.6 per cent of respondents agreed that lecture capture encouraged poor attendance.
However, the study also surveyed 1,734 students about their views on lecture capture and found that they made significant use of lecture recordings, especially for note taking, clarification and assessment preparation.
While the main reason students gave for watching a recording was missing a lecture, a high number reported using the videos to recap content that they may not have understood clearly during a class. About three-quarters of participants reported watching recorded lectures “often” for help when writing assignments.
The total number of student views of videos rose from about 500,000 in the first year of the study to 1.7 million in the fourth. The proportion of students viewing at least one video climbed over the same period from 50.4 per cent to 81.4 per cent, with students watching 10 recordings each on average.
Students’ positive views contrasted with the responses from staff. More than one in four lecturers (27.5 per cent) said lecture capture had resulted in changes to their teaching style, with more than half (50.8 per cent) saying it had hindered their spontaneity.
Neil Morris, dean of digital education at Leeds and one of the authors of the study, described the reduction in attendance as “marginal”, albeit statistically significant, adding that it was “unfortunate” that some staff had felt the need to alter their teaching style.
Many in the sector have highlighted the importance of lecture capture for students with special educational needs or personal and family commitments that affect their ability to attend lectures.
“With staff, you would hope they have a pedagogy-led approach with all their teaching, but it feels there have been unintended consequences of lecture capture, where technology has led instead,” Professor Morris said.
“They are thinking about the negative implications of the technology – what will people think of me? – so they just say what’s on the slides and stop telling stories or going off track, which is the brilliant part of a fantastic lecture,” he said. He added that it created “a vicious circle – lectures aren’t engaging so students see no value in attending”.
Professor Morris added: “The data from this survey show how important it is that universities have a detailed conversation with staff and say, ‘Students absolutely want and need this kind of support with their teaching, and they are using it for learning reasons, so how do we implement the technology effectively, led by pedagogy?’”
Publicație : The Times
Academics split on risk to universities after Hong Kong protests
Observers suggest attempts to influence campus affairs – directly or indirectly – might increase after assault on legislature
Opinion is divided over whether the storming of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council building will lead to reduced freedoms for the territory’s universities.
William Tierney, Wilbur-Kieffer professor of higher education at the University of Southern California, said the violent end to protests against a controversial extradition bill posed “severe threats” for universities.
“China will not let Hong Kong exert greater freedom and voice,” said Professor Tierney, who is also an interdisciplinary research fellow at the University of Hong Kong. He said organisations that supported democracy, including universities, could expect greater oversight.
“I am not optimistic that the universities can or will develop a coherent long-term response,” he said.
But University of Hiroshima education researcher Futao Huang said Chinese universities benefited from their relationships with Hong Kong counterparts, and mainland authorities would not risk the international prestige of the territory’s institutions by curtailing their academic freedom.
Consequently, the Chinese government was unlikely to impose “immediate and direct political or ideological constraints” on their governance, teaching, research or students’ movements, he said.
Professor Huang predicted that Beijing would use “indirect measures” to influence the territory’s universities, including accelerating the consolidation of higher education links between Hong Kong and China.
Tensions were high after the three-hour occupation of the legislature left the building in tatters and triggered demands from a Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper that Hong Kong authorities take a “zero-tolerance” approach to “mob violence”.
The chaos contrasted with the quiet of Hong Kong campuses, which were largely vacant in the period between the main academic semesters.
Compared with 2014, when the Umbrella Movement protests and associated campus boycotts occurred during class time, academics have found it difficult to gauge students’ involvement in the recent demonstrations.
One Hong Kong-based professor said colleagues were concerned about possible recriminations against students, given that many of the protesters were young, but signs of broader consequences for institutional autonomy were unlikely to emerge before the next semester started in September.
A Beijing academic said that with China’s attention focused on trade tensions with the US, a crackdown on Hong Kong was unlikely and interventions targeting universities were even more improbable.
But Professor Tierney said the territory’s universities had already been affected by an increasingly authoritarian Beijing. He said University of Hong Kong academic Benny Tai and other activists had been imprisoned because they “fomented a peaceful protest” in 2014, and former vice-chancellor Peter Mathieson had resigned partly “because he tried to protect students who the Chinese government didn’t want protected”.
“The result is weaker vice-chancellors and more aggressive governing boards who are in support of China,” Professor Tierney said.
The imprisonment of Professor Tai and a fellow academic has been portrayed as a litmus test for academic freedom in the territory. Professor Tierney has drawn parallels between university leaders’ failure to object publicly to the jailing and academic silence during the 1950s persecution of US communist sympathisers.
The University of Hong Kong has been at the centre of allegations of mainland meddling, in episodes such as a controversial 2011 visit by Chinese vice-premier Li Keqiang and the university council’s 2015 rejection of pro-democracy lawyer Johannes Chan’s appointment as pro vice-chancellor.
University administrators argued that the significance of such events has been exaggerated and insisted that they have never received instructions of any sort from Beijing.
Publicație : The Times
Call to support religious groups to bridge campus divides
Report finds groups such as Christian Union can play an important role
Religious societies in UK universities provide vital support for their members but need to do far more to reach out to each other, a report says.
Faith and Belief on Campus: Division and Cohesion, released on 4 July by the religion and society thinktank Theos and Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, found “at least 888 [faith and belief] societies” operating in UK universities, with an estimated membership of more than 18,000. Despite inevitable “challenges and internal divisions”, said lead author Simon Perfect, a researcher at SOAS University of London, “faith and belief societies are very good at building bonds between members of the same religion or belief group”, offering a vital support resource for lonely or distressed students and usually a place to practise their religion.
Yet Mr Perfect also wanted to see them reaching out to each other because “universities are central places for learning the value of living alongside people with different identities and beliefs. If we can get universities where this kind of dialogue and understanding is very strong, that has very beneficial repercussions for wider society.”
It was here that many societies were failing to live up to their potential. Some, admitted Mr Perfect, simply put their efforts elsewhere. A number of Christian Unions, for example, were focused on proselytisation – sometimes even outside nightclubs – and “less interested in sitting on a panel and giving students of a different faith or belief a public voice”.
Yet in general, the researchers had found “a strong appetite” for interfaith work. Mr Perfect cited the case of an Islamic Society “hoping to organise a poetry slam event with the Christian Union” and “really good work being done by Sikh societies who wanted to reach out to a whole variety of faith groups”. Practical and logistical issues, unfortunately, often meant that these aspirations often bore little fruit.
The report’s concluding recommendations therefore urge faith and belief societies to “explore ways of increasing the frequency with which they collaborate with other such societies” and to set realistic targets such as “organising at least one small-scale collaboration…per term”. But it also saw a much bigger role for students’ unions. One promising option was giving a religiously literate “permanent member of staff a religion or belief brief”. Such individuals could then “invit[e] the Faith & Belief Forum or other interfaith organisations to help organise” events or “set up an ‘interfaith buddy’ scheme, directly connecting members of different religions or beliefs and encouraging them to form friendships”.
“The students need institutional support from the union,” agreed Mr Perfect, citing a case where a staff member was “very proactive in going out to speak to those societies and asking them what their needs were and trying to build links. That can lead to a one-off panel debate or, better still, a medium- to long-term project, for example around social action.”
Publicație : The Times
La lunga corsa da record di Rep@Scuola, da Greta fino alle fake news
Un anno intenso tra articoli, scatti fotografici e opinioni sulle grandi questioni del nostro tempo. Iniziative con grandi partner nazionali e internazionali. E la cifra da capogiro di 135mila contributi pubblicati dagli studenti. Arrivano i vincitori per le medie e le superiori del Campionato. Senza dimenticare il debutto di „Atlante”, la piattaforma per i progetti dei professori
L’edizione 2018/19 di Repubblica@Scuola arriva al traguardo. E’ stata una lunga corsa. Intensa e appassionata. Quasi dieci mesi durante i quali sono stati tanti gli spunti e le occasioni per partecipare e avvicinarsi alle questioni dell’attualità e alle grandi trasformazioni del nostro tempo. Tanti i giochi e le sfide. Quest’anno è stata raggiunta la cifra record di 135 mila contributi pubblicati dagli studenti e dalle studentesse delle scuole.
Un coinvolgimento che ha toccato un gran numero di istituti italiani con 2.260 scuole iscritte, circa 12 mila professori e 250 mila studenti. E sono stati proprio loro, studenti e professori, a contribuire in maniera decisiva alla realizzazione di un giornale sul web che ha affrontato, di volta in volta, temi scottanti e attualissimi. Dalla battaglia di Greta Thunberg per l’ambiente al fenomeno delle fake news, dal progetto in trasformazione dell’Unione europea fino al cyberbullismo.
Sono numeri che fanno di Repubblica@Scuola una piattaforma unica, in Italia e non solo, di lavoro e divertimento intellettuale di giovani delle medie e superiori accompagnati dai loro docenti. Un portale online – ormai molto noto e al quale sono stati attribuiti anche premi internazionali – che da anni propone ai ragazzi di sperimentarsi con tutte le forme di giornalismo durante i mesi di scuola. Con una immagine potremmo definirlo l’evoluzione nel nuovo millennio degli storici giornali scolastici, ma tutti uniti (a migliaia) in un grande giornale scolastico nazionale.
Con l’opportunità di confrontarsi con grandi proposte nate dalla collaborazione di Rep@Scuola con partner del livello di Google (con la seconda serie di video-confronti realizzati direttamente nelle classi per navigare con sicurezza nel web), di United Network (la grande organizzazione delle simulazioni Onu Imun che ha portato i vincitori al Palazzo di Vetro a New York), di Comix (gli organizzatori del celebre diario conducono sul sito e nelle scuole un campionato di giochi sulla lingua che ha la sua finale al Salone del Libro di Torino), di National Geografic o di Intercultura (con in palio una settimana in una scuola europea). E tanti ancora, fino alla collaborazione nei mesi scorsi con Medici senza Frontiere. Poi, parallela, l’esperienza di Scuola-Lavoro nella quale per otto classi al mese c’è stata l’opportunità di seguire un corso interattivo di giornalismo e produrre i loro articoli, foto, titoli.
Ma queste sono solo quelle che potremmo definire iniziative speciali. Regolari, una settimana dopo l’altra, ci sono le attività giornalistiche che coinvolgono migliaia di studenti nello scrivere articoli su temi di attualità, nell’immaginare didascalie (un diluvio di immaginazione) a fotografie che vengono via via proposte, a mandare le loro foto e – da quest’anno – i loro commenti al giornale in edicola: quest’ultima sembrava una scommessa, ne sono arrivati migliaia. Tutti approvati dai “docenti-capiredattore” che se da una parte hanno uno strumento didattico a disposizione, dall’altra si sobbarcano un gran lavoro in più.
Proprio per loro, per i docenti, da quest’anno è stata creata insieme a United Network una iniziativa unica nel Paese: una piattaforma cui inviare i progetti promossi e realizzati nelle scuole. “Atlante 2018, italian teacher award” al suo primo anno è nato come un esperimento, che ha travolto ogni ottimistica previsione: in un mese sono arrivati 700 progetti, sei docenti sono stati premiati all’auditorium Santa Cecilia di Roma, ma l’idea è che siano solo dei rappresentanti di quanto di vivo ci sia nella affaticata scuola italiana. E, in più, Atlante è di fatto il più grande contenitore di progetti scolastici consultabili da tutti in Italia. Nel 2019 si continua.
Publicație: La Repubblica