Italy, Istituto di Istruzione Superiore "G. Mazzatinti"

Istituto di Istuzione Superiore “G. Mazzatinti” in Gubbio

con­tin­u­ously tests new meth­ods and prac­tices for more ef­fec­tive and cap­ti­vat­ing teach­ing.

1. Ex­plor­ing and… mak­ing re­al­ity
2. Open doors, open minds

Successful experiences in educational innovation

In­tro­duc­tion

With its wide-rang­ing cur­ricu­lum in five ar­eas of study – art, clas­sics, math and sci­ence, hu­man and so­cial sci­ence, and sport – Liceo “G. Maz­zat­inti” con­tin­u­ously tests new meth­ods and new prac­tices for a more ef­fec­tive and cap­ti­vat­ing teach­ing which in­volves stu­dents, teach­ers, fam­i­lies and all the sur­round­ing en­vi­ron­ment as pro­tag­o­nists of an ed­u­ca­tional path start­ing at school, but in­tended to con­tinue for a life­time. You will find here a se­lec­tion of the most sig­nif­i­cant among our cur­rent prac­tices, also showed in this Prezi pre­sen­ta­tion. (Pre­sented in Gub­bio April 2016)

Our con­tacts
Of­fi­cial web­site of the school
Of­fi­cial Face­book ac­count of the school
Of­fi­cial Twit­ter ac­count of the school

Exploring and… making reality!

Liceo “G. Maz­zat­inti” keeps its eyes on the world spin­ning around and favours ex­pe­ri­ence as a di­rect and crit­i­cal ap­proach to re­al­ity: there­fore, it at­taches im­por­tance to teach­ing method­ol­ogy as far as pos­si­ble based on work­shops and car­ried out in lab­o­ra­to­ries, as well as in the class­rooms. So, stu­dents are ev­ery day in­volved in ac­tiv­i­ties which take place in the ICT, lin­guis­tic and mul­ti­me­dia labs.

A spe­cial men­tion is for the artis­tic labs, where stu­dents are able not only to ob­serve, but also to make what sur­rounds them, giv­ing con­crete­ness to their cre­ativ­ity. So, they de­sign and cre­ate things (also re­cy­cling ob­jects, like bar­rels and drums) which are of­ten awarded on the oc­ca­sion of de­sign con­tests.

Participating in… “Olympic” games!

A method based on ex­pe­ri­ence is typ­i­cal of the sport cur­ricu­lum, within which stu­dents study and prac­tice var­i­ous sports (team sports, fenc­ing, rugby, swim­ming, gym­nas­tics, climb­ing, sail­ing etc.), and of­ten meet im­por­tant sport per­son­al­i­ties, who re­in­force their mo­ti­va­tion.

But, metaphor­i­cally speak­ing, the “Olympic” spirit of the whole Liceo is very strong, as it ev­ery year par­tic­i­pates in na­tional com­pe­ti­tions in or­der to put to the test its di­dac­tic method. So, here it is the par­tic­i­pa­tion to the Na­tional Olympic Games of Maths, of Phi­los­o­phy, of Chem­istry, to var­i­ous cer­tam­ina of trans­la­tion from Latin and Greek and, es­pe­cially, to the Olympic Games of Ital­ian and of Clas­sic Lan­guages and Cul­tures: with re­spect to these last two com­pe­ti­tions, our stu­dents en­tered in the last cou­ple of years in the fi­nal na­tional charts. A lit­tle suc­cess which, to­gether with the  al­ready men­tioned prizes got in the artis­tic field, leads us to cul­ti­vate the cur­rent di­dac­tic meth­ods and to find new ones.

We love classics!

Last Jan­u­ary (2016), for the sec­ond year, the Liceo ar­ranged the Na­tional Nuit Blanche of Clas­si­cal Lyceum, an event which gath­ered to­gether more than 200 clas­si­cal high schools all over Italy, si­mul­ta­ne­ously cel­e­brat­ing the great her­itage left by clas­si­cal an­tiq­uity. As in the past year, the feast was a big suc­cess and in­volved for the or­ga­ni­za­tion all the cur­ric­ula of the Liceo, which showed their abil­ity in co­op­er­at­ing. Ev­ery in­volved stu­dent could de­velop the ap­ti­tude to the in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary re­search in or­der to im­prove his own co­op­er­a­tion skills and… have fun! (see the Prezi pre­sen­ta­tion for some ac­tiv­i­ties car­ried out by the Liceo dur­ing the Na­tional Nuit Blanche 2016: a work­shop on the myth of Mino­taur; Star walks, a shadow play based on the myths of Perseus, and of Or­pheus and Eu­ry­dice; var­i­ous games: logic games, board games, role play­ing; Pro­cessi a Medea, an in­ter­ac­tive play where the sor­cer­ess Medea is tried for her crimes in Corynth; and also other plays, sci­ence labs, con­certs, bal­lets, a cel­e­bra­tion of the Olympic games,
art in­stal­la­tions and per­for­mances).

Ready to read!

Be­sides ex­pe­ri­ence and a di­rect link with re­al­ity, the Liceo at­taches much im­por­tance to the spo­ken and writ­ten word: in or­der to make aware not only stu­dents, but the whole com­mu­nity about the vi­tal im­por­tance of read­ing and cul­ture, the Liceo or­ga­nized a Read­ing Marathon set in five spots in Gub­bio, ded­i­cat­ing ev­ery place to a dif­fer­ent lit­er­ary genre or age of the world lit­er­ary his­tory (e.g. Mid­dle Ages, Re­nais­sance, II World War, re­li­gious po­etry, an­cient the­atre) with read­ings, art dance and mu­sic per­for­mances with our stu­dents, di­rectly in­volved also in choos­ing texts and ar­rang­ing per­fo­mances.

Not only spo­ken – we were say­ing – but also writ­ten word: so, the Liceo pe­ri­od­i­cally pub­lishes a school mag­a­zine, In­vio, where stu­dents – as in a big ed­i­to­rial of­fice – choose the top­ics of pages, write and col­lect ar­ti­cles, and dis­trib­ute the mag­a­zine. This is a good way to de­velop writ­ing and or­ganaz­ing skills, and to link the school ex­pe­ri­ence with the wider town com­mu­nity.

The show must go on

The Liceo at­taches much im­por­tance to the­atre as a mo­ment of growth and en­rich­ment for stu­dents: ev­ery year the school or­ga­nizes shows for the town com­mu­nity, ap­pre­ci­ated also on a na­tional level. Be­sides its own shows, the Liceo also par­tic­i­pates in the or­ga­ni­za­tion of other shows, as for the stage cos­tumes of the mu­si­cal com­edy Pan­tapolo­nia.

Loving art and cooperating with FAI

The Liceo is a me­di­a­tor of cul­ture not only by means of the­atre, but also through the Gior­nate FAI di Pri­mav­era (FAI Sp­ing Days), in co­op­er­a­tion with FAI (the main Ital­ian non-profit foun­da­tion for the pro­tec­tion, safe­guard­ing and man­age­ment of the coun­try’s artis­tic and nat­u­ral her­itage). Ev­ery year, when spring starts, many stu­dents of the Liceo be­come a sort of “ap­pren­tice Ci­cerones” and show the beau­ties of Gub­bio and its area to cit­i­zens and tourists. It is a very good oc­ca­sion for go­ing into the study of his­tory and art, im­prov­ing pub­lic speak­ing skills.

Listening to our beating heart!

Not only study, but also heart: the Liceo co­op­er­ates with AVIS (the ma­jor Ital­ian non-profit and char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion for blood do­na­tion), and many stu­dends find out the im­por­tance of a gift which gives life to oth­ers; with Lib­era, a na­tional as­so­ci­a­tion born with the pur­pose of in­volv­ing and sup­port­ing all those who are in­ter­ested in the fight against mafias and or­ga­nized crime; with El.Ba., a town as­so­ci­a­tion in­volved in ac­tiv­i­ties for aware­ness about se­cure driv­ing.

Open doors, open minds

Gen­eros­ity and open­ness are very im­por­tant val­ues for the Liceo.

There­fore, big im­por­tance is at­tached to projects and in­stru­ments aim­ing at com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the world, as eTwin­ning. Aware of the use­ful­ness of know­ing many lan­guages, the Liceo or­ga­nizes lan­guage cour­ses not only of Eng­lish, but also of French, Span­ish and Ger­man for the in­ter­ested stu­dents, who have so the op­por­tu­nity of deal­ing with an in­creas­ingly ex­pand­ing world. A spe­cial men­tion is fot the project “Save Art through Eng­lish”, which com­bines art, his­tory and Eng­lish with a visit of Flo­rence led by an Eng­lish-speak­ing tourist guide.

Last, but not least, we re­call here the good prac­tice of… Eras­mus+, which gives the Liceo the chance of shar­ing ideas and projects, and the pos­si­bil­ity of en­vi­sion­ing a new model of school and, per­haps, of the world.