Since school year 2018-2019, the Center has been proposing educational courses PCTO – Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e per l’Orientamento (Courses for Cross-Skills and Orientation) in partnership with Settore Innovazione e Semplificazione Amministrativa e Cura delle Relazioni con il Cittadino, Pari Opportunità, Tutela delle Differenze Contrasto alla violenza di genere del Comune di Bologna (Sector for Innovation, Bureaucratic Simplification, Care of Relationships with The Citizen, Equal Opportunities, Protection of Differences, and Fight against Gender-Based Violence of Bologna Municipality).

 

The educational courses aim to reinforce empathy by promoting an inclusive social context, giving value to wide diversity, aim to enhance listening skills and comprehension, creative and communication skills, and critical skills.

 

All the PCTOs we propose to schools start from texts to read in order to explore their themes. The participating classes receive copies of the chosen books for free, to guarantee everyone’s participation. Attending the courses is completely free as well.

 

These are the projects curated by the Center:

 

IL MIO CANTO LIBERO (My free singing)
A reflection on the historical and social roots of homophobia in Italy

 

It is made up of 6 encounters for a total of 18 hours (30 including the reading of the text and the classroom activities for the final rendering), and overseen by both the Center and
the association Komos. The project aims to reconstruct the forgotten history of homosexual people condemned to confinement during fascism. The starting point for this project is reading: the participating class will read Gli occhiali d’oro (The Gold Rimmed Spectacles) by Giorgio Bassani, and the graphic novel In Italia sono tutti maschi (In Italy All Are Males) by Sara Colaone and Luca de Santis. Both books are given as a gift to the class to ease reading. The class will learn how to do a historical research in a creative and innovative way, starting from sources and archival material filtered through a multidisciplinary point of view: cinema, literature, comics, photography, theatre, and music.

 

The project includes encounters with authors, and ends with a theatrical/musical show by Komos Choir that finds the links between past and present, the thread that ties discrimination homosexual people underwent during fascism and contemporary homotransphobia.

 

 

UNA BELLA DIFFERENZA (A good difference)
Reading courses to discover and value diversities

 

The project is made of five encounters for a total of 10 hours in the classroom (30 ncluding the reading of texts and the classroom activities for the final rendering). Its goal is reinforcing the students’ empathy, promoting an inclusive social context, and giving value to many diversities. The focus for enhancement are creative and communicative skills, and critical thinking starting from texts in the selected bibliography. Books in the bibliography will be given for free to the class to guarantee participation. The project includes dramatized aloud readings with live music, and workshops that explore narration as a tool to express identity, and face the different, relationships and the conflicts that arise from that. At the end of the project an encounter with one of the authors of the selected books is scheduled, so the class can discuss the project with them, and also reflect on the inner working and techniques of narration, and writing as a profession.

 

IL MIO AMORE NON PUÒ FARTI MALE (My love cannot harm you)
Civil rights and inclusive citizenship

 

The project is made of five encounters for a total of 15 hours (30 including the reading of texts and the classroom activities for the final rendering) and starts from Piergiorgio Paterlini’s Il mio amore non può farti male. Vita (e morte) di Harvey Milk (My love cannot harm you. Life (and death) of Harvey Milk, Einaudi Ragazzi, 2018) to study LGBT+ movement history: the key figure of American activism, the Italian and Bolognese history of the movement, and a special note on the meaning and role of community archives as a mean of preserving historical memories. The theme is explored through a multidisciplinary lens: cinema, literature, theatre, and music. The project includes with archivists and LGBT+ activists, and ends with a reading dj-set by Vincenzo Branà adapted from Paterlini’s book, with the direction and participation of Massimiliano Briarava.

(The project is not active for school year 2023-2024)
A new course is being prepared for the school year 2023/2024.

 

For more info and updates, we suggest checking the dedicated pages on the site of Bologna Municipality.