From 19 to 23 September, New York hosted the New York Futura School, an international educational initiative promoted by the Ministry of Education and Merit. The project brought together 84 students from eleven Italian schools, the Liceo Manfredo Fanti di Carpi, the Liceo Ginnasio Eugenio Montale di Roma, the Liceo Statale Pascasino-Giovanni XXIII di Marsala, the IIS Duni Levi di Matera, the Liceo Ginnasio Statale Benedetto Cairoli di Vigevano, the Convitto Nazionale Torquato Tasso di Salerno, the Liceo Luthero Marinoni di Udine, together with the students of La Scuola d’Italia Guglielmo Marconi in New York.
For La Scuola d’Italia Guglielmo Marconi, the initiative was promoted and organized by the Coordinator of the High School Beatrice Innocenti and Professor Francesco D’Anna, while to lead the team of Futura School were Lorenzo Micheli and Luisa Cannas.
The project was based on a method of learning by doing: students, divided into ten working groups, took part in two parallel workshops. Six groups have worked in Orizzonti – The Italian Language of Values, exploring words and values related to Italian culture through literature, art, science, history and contemporary visual languages, with a final result collected in a “Glossary of Italian Culture”. The other four groups have worked in Dialoghi – Great Italian Voices in Culture and Science, bringing together great figures of Italian literature, science and art through authentic texts and historical sources, with the support of digital tools and artificial intelligence generated, used with particular attention to the critical evaluation of sources.
The week opened on 19 September with a welcome gathering in Piazza Italia, followed by two full days of workshops on 21 and 22 September, always in Piazza Italia. On 23 September, the final day, the students dedicated the morning to the finalization of the projects and the internal presentations of the works, before the final event, scheduled at the Lincoln Center in the evening, with the participation of students, teachers, educators and institutional representatives.
On the same day, the Minister of Education and Merit Giuseppe Valditara met with students and teachers of La Scuola d’Italia Guglielmo Marconi, before taking part in the final event at the Lincoln Center. During the visit, the Minister confronted the children on the themes at the center of the two laboratories of Futura School, showing interest in the research work carried out on figures such as Dante, Leonardo, Galilei and Michelangelo, and spoke about the role of Italian schools abroad as a cultural bridge between Italy and the countries that host them.
At the closing ceremony at the Kaplan Penthouse of Lincoln Center, Valditara retraced the day spent at the United Nations for the Multiply Possibility event, where Italy and Nigeria led the mobilization of public and private resources for education in the countries in difficulty: “OPEC has earmarked $800 million for the development of education in difficult countries, and many other governments and foundations have done the same, including the Italian government that has doubled its appropriations. ” He proudly told the presence, in that same place, of the young representatives of the Italian student consultations, applauded by international ministers and personalities: “It’s the first time students come to the UN.” He closed his intervention by returning to the centrality of the West in the new school programs, a theme that, he said, unites today Italy and the United States through history and values shared by the two great peoples.
On the meaning of the experience for the students involved, the Minister said he hoped that “the awareness of strong ties with so many other young people from many other nations,” adding the hope that other countries will follow the Italian example, bringing in the next international assemblies, starting from the G20, representatives of the student consults.
L’articolo School Futura New York, from Piazza Italia to La Scuola d’Italia, to finish with the final event at the Lincoln Center proviene da IlNewyorkese.
