Session Information
05 SES 12 A, New Perspectives on School Exclusion Drop-Out and Participation
Paper Session
Contribution
Learned helplessness (Seligman, 1968) is one of the most relevant driver of youth deviance and dropout. During their educational pathway, these learners have lost their self-awareness due to evaluation assessment practices which disprove their personality with an antisymmetric relation of normalization: “You must or you must not; you are or you are not; …”.
To this extent, in line with Watzlawick’s “relationship of care” (1967), the mutual recognition among the educator, the teacher and every learner is crucial. This relationship aims at promoting free will and personal abilities as an expression of one’s own life. Nussbaum emphasizes this concept in terms of capability, underlining how the educator, through this educational relation, can enhance a space for an individualized thinking in the learner, conceived as able and determinate. In this way, the learner, conceived as able by the educator and actually able to imagine how to act, personalizes the task and acts.
This connection between individualization and personalization is often applied in the “atelier” approach: two different minds, educator and learner, deal with their different ideas. The educator plans a specific learning environment where every learner has to develop a hypothetic-deductive thinking and to self-regulate with peers. On the other hand, the latter learns how to learn (Morin, 2015), proposes critical analysis and predictions based on data, shows him/herself and others his/her own capacities-abilities applied in that context, and finally understand the difference between ingenious thoughts and known thoughts (Premoli, 1992) as recognized by the group and the educator. This approach encourages a forma mentis able to look at reality in an authentic and regulated way.
This research focuses on a specific case study where the atelier approach has been implemented in order to reduce the risk of dropout: the child-care centre Il Manto (Como, Italy), offering to approximately 140 children (from 6 to 13 y.o) every day a selection from 8 different atelier, including tayloring, gardening, carpentry, baking, building games.
The atelier approach, as developed by Il Manto, focuses on a specific self-regulative model of orienteering (Mercadante, 2007), as a potential way to enable beneficiaries’ capability. The model, based on design and co-design, encourages the co-construction of the learning environment by sharing a common task while preserving personal initiatives. All the participants, in fact, have to choose and express their idea-project, activating their volitional and metacognitive thinking.
In this context, the educator’s role implies empowering both the single learner and the group proposing generative questions, clarifying critical-argumentative analysis on problem-posing, monitoring how learners accomplish the execution of their personal projects through the self-co-evaluation process. In this way, learners can feel the satisfaction of “being able to”, according to the three dimensions of the competence: operational, cognitive, socio-emotional (Pellerey).
The Atelier approach is then strictly connected to capabilities: there is a clear remind to the strategic competences of craftsmen. The Atelier offers a place where:
- Repetition, variation, reiteration, intentional thinking in action are encouraged;
- It is possible a dialogue between learner’s thinking, as concretized in the handicraft, and the same handicraft which lets the authentic, unique learner’s personality thrive;
- The strategic techniques of the creative-artistic thinking are enhanced, giving the learner the ability to “imagine” life and the world and feeling a world citizen. (Albanese and Mercadante, 2012).
Method
The research has been developed in the form of a case study on the Il Manto activities. Different Ateliers are promoted every year, starting from the interests of children, according to a model of self-regulation of design which enables a relational thinking between the educator and the learners by the self-co-regulation. Some common phases are here outlined: - Design. The educators involve learners in selecting the Atelier they prefer on the base of their personal interests. They exercise their right of free choise, taking responsibility, authonomy and volitional system. - Co-Design. When the group activity starts, the educator ask the “generative question”. In the gardening atelier, it would be “What is a garden for?” “What does it mean to design a garden?”, followed by more explicative questions such as “What can we produce with one squared meter garden?”. Answers are then collected and shared, in order to proceed to plan: measuring the space, dimensions, time for seeding and time to realize all the other stages of the atelier. In order to plan, the question is “Who does what?”, in order to clarify again the division of tasks and learners’ responsibility. Afterwards, indicators are selected in order to outline capacities-abilities for every competence put in action, declined in the 3 dimensions: operational, cognitive, socio-emotional. - Realization, Revision, Critics and Self-co-evaluation. Every learner is requested for a self-assessment on the base of selected indicators representing the activation of capabilities; at the same time, the other learners and the educator evaluate every learner explaining their decisions. The system is based on a 3-levels scale: red (that indicator is not visible), yellow (the ability is not stable), green (the ability is visible and clearly mature). - Repetition. Some activities are proposed in different settings or perspectives, stimulating students to develop a mindset not only in cognitive terms, but also relational and emotional. This step is crucial in order to get a real empowerment of students’ capabilities, making them able and willing to implement those elements in other contexts, from their schools to life (transferability). Based on interviews and on-field analysis, the research will point out the main elements related to each practice in order to offer a complete overview on the approach, for international comparison.
Expected Outcomes
The impact of the Atelier approach on children’s capabilities emerges from the empirical results children collect. They feel themselves responsible for the development of the Atelier, increasing the awareness of their own capacities, both cognitive and non-cognitive. The self-co-regulation will show the increasing motivation, with a clear impact on their results at school. The same learners create their personal “Curriculum of Talents and Strenghts” (CTS), collecting pictures, semi-structured interviews and their balance of competences. The CTS is shared by educators with children’s school teachers to integrate their evaluation.
References
- Albanese O., Mercadante L., (2012) L' inclusione dell'insegnante di sostegno nel gruppo classe. Riflettere ed innovare. Bergamo, Junior. - Mercadante L. (2007) Co-progettare l’apprendimento. Modelli, esperienze, casi. Roma, Carocci. - Morin E., Insegnare a vivere, 2015. Milano, Cortina. - Nussbaum M.C., (2007) Constitutions and Capabilities: «Perception» against Lofty Formalism, in Harvard Law Review. - Pellerey M., (2001) Sul concetto di competenza e in particolare sul lavoro, in C. Montedoro (ed.) Dalla pratica alla teoria per la formazione: un percorso di ricerca epistemologico. Milano, Franco Angeli. - Pellerey M., (2003) Metacognizione e processi affettivi, motivazionali e volitivi, in O. Albanese (ed.) Percorsi Metacognitivi. Milano, Franco Angeli. - Pellerey M., (2006) Dirigere il proprio apprendimento. Brescia, La scuola. - Premoli S., (1992) Il soggetto in divenire. Milano. Cortina - Seligman M.E., Maier S.F. & Geer J. (1968) The alleviation of learned helplessness in dogs. - Watzlawick P., Beavin J.H., Jackson D.D.,(1967) Pragmatics of Human Communication. A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes. New York: w. w. Norton & Company.
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