LSU ECE in Italy

Bruno Munari workshop - Chiara Baldassarre, University of Bologna Munari was a Milanese artist, painter, designer, and pedagogue; an illustrator and creator of books for children and adults. He is the first to provoke and invent children's art workshops in museums. His art was playful, as he looked at objects from a new perspective and used them in extraordinary and original ways. Using a slides provides a smaller area to create. Art is projected onto  the wall to provide a new perspective. Manipulation of materials of different textures/colors creates a variety of effects. This method is provides another medium for expression. Children can be challenged to make a continuation slides of a similar nature.  Children are then asked to 'tell a story' about their work. 

Centro Educativo Italio-Svizzero (CEIS) School ( www.ceis.rn.it ) The CEIS school was established in 1946 in Rimini, Italy after WWII. With the town in ruins,  the mayor of the town, Arturo Clari, asked for help from everywhere. Switzerland  send Margherita Zoeli, who founded the school. It is fashioned from wooden barracks from the Swiss army.  Children and staff call CEIS "Il Villaggio" (The Village). The community school served as the hub of the community, offering 'furniture packs' (consisting of two wooden beds, a table and four stools a cupboard, pots and pans, plates and cutlery, and also offered workshops on carpentry, tailoring, and shoemaking to preserve the dignity of the population. The focus of CEIS is to educate all children. The philosophy is inspired by progressive pedagogic theories (Freinet, Cousinet, Froebel, Laporta, Borghi, De Bartolomeis); education is rooted in the concrete - it must be practical and part of the ...

Dr. Andrea Ceciliani - The Value of Outdoor Education "To live the body in the space-time" We began the day at the University of Bologna campus in Rimini, a beautiful seaside city on the Adriatic. We learned about physical activity, play, and brain activity, and how to set up “bonded play spaces” to encourage children to develop specific physical abilities.  The recommendation World Health Organization is for children to have at least one hour of physical activity per day, even on weekends. Italians embrace the notion of "Educare", which situates learning within a culture of support. Parents work with schools to assist child in gaining confidence through appropriate risk taking. "Don't overprotect; Don't underestimate" - these are the two parent behaviors that reduce opportunities for young children to grow and learn. Adults have an agenda of directing children's learning; however, it is important for the child to move through what ...

Ca’ la Ghirobda Modern Art Museum - In Dialogue between Art and Nature, Michela Schenetti, University of Bologna Wonderful inspiration from this outdoor museum from both landscape and sculpture gardens. We began with a lecture from the museum's education director who provided an overview of the creation of this relatively new museum.  We learned that both the sculptures and the landscapes themselves were designed as works of art - carefully composed to complement each other. We toured and admired the gardens and art, then in small groups chose one work to  focus  on and study in detail.  Each small group presented their impressions of and reactions to their focal piece. We then engaged in the type of activity both children and adults are invited to do when visiting the museum grounds.  We chose a vantage point anywhere on the grounds and spent about an hour outdoors sketching using pencil.  Next, we divided our sketch into third...

This day we explored Bologna’s most famous artist, Giorgio Morandi, and experienced the ways two different museums devoted to his life and work engage children in their own expression. We began at the home the artist shared with his sisters and parents where his tiny bedroom also served as his studio. We received individual little booklets with each page devoted to “rules” Morandi used to support his artistic endeavors. Each page prompted a simple activity related to that rule. For example, one page directed us to use two full minutes to write our own name - noticing each pen stroke, hearing the sound of pen on paper, and feeling the motions as we wrote. Very similar to a common practice in Reggio Emilia schools, another page directed us to "impara a guardare" - roughly translated as "learn to look" - by examining closely and attempting to capture details, textures, light, and so on around something as simple as a floorboard. We then chose one of three window...

ReMida - Carlotta Ferrozzi The ReMida is a repository center where businesses and individual community members can donate materials and others can get materials to upcycle. The ReMida has 3 ateliers: light/shadow, construction, and creativity. For a small annual fee, local community members and schools can obtain a membership that allows them to visit anytime and take whatever materials they want for individual projects or for use by children in schools.  Teachers in member schools can also bring children to the ReMida so they can use the ateliers for their learning through play and then help their teachers select materials to bring back to their classrooms. Materials "upcycled" into totem sculptures at the entrance to the ReMida. A child's view of how to create something new from a common industrial material (translated from Italian). After a presentation about the ReMida, our group was invited to explore the ateliers. Through their own experimenta...