The unbearable lightness of beauty hidden by/in the pandemic

The dramatic and unprecedented impact of the planetary epidemic, on all contexts of life, has caused a painful deprivation of inalienable freedoms, both individual and collective, in addition to strengthening the global crisis in order to health, economic, social, political, cultural, digital, educational, philosophical, anthropological, ethical, aesthetic aspects. The upheaval of everyday life that has invested the current historical juncture, has been accompanied by the need for care that humanity has always manifested. The father of modern surgery, A. Paré (1517-1590) achieves the transition from a war representation, the war on evil, to a rural representation, the cure of evil. The cure replaces the war. And diseases are placed on a new scenario. Mental and operational. Faced with the disorientation of negative emotions, of which fear represents the profound consequence of the pandemic, it is possible to recall the strategies of regulation that are learned in the process of socialization. People can use coping strategies to deal with environmental stresses to events that might be perceived as uncontrollable and, therefore, sources of great stress. The research and education to the value of beauty, which in the Greek logos is concretely expressed in the harmonic manifestation of being, can be a significant and strategic contribution to the understanding, reading, intuition of man’s measure in all things and in all phenomena, even those new ones belonging to a new world.

The DAD after the DAD: from emergency to new opportunity. The experience of the training of supports teachers

This essay looks at the real revolution that has taken place since March 2020 in educational activities for Pre-Service Teachers for Students with Special Needs.Starting from only partly tested previously in distance learning, universities have had to quickly redesign lessons, workshops, final tests, and, in some cases, selective testing by moving them online. How much of this unquestionable educational emergency can be transformed into new opportunities? To answer the question, the essay takes the points of view of both the TFA Course’s coordination work supporting a small university and a rather significant number of students (1367 in total). A survey questionnaire expressed some, at times, surprising viewpoints.

Active surveillance as a collateral practice of contemporary pedagogical devices of the present time.

“A collateral victim”[1] of the Spanish flu epidemic: these are the words that Edgar Morin uses to define himself in his “Preamble: One hundred years of vicissitudes” (2020, p. 9), written during the lockdown imposed to stem the spread of Covid-19. Over a handful of pages, the French philosopher and sociologist gives a first-person account of his own personal life in relation to the history of the great crises of the 20th Century. His preamble to the book Let’s change lanes: Lessons of Coronavirus reads as follows: “The reader can now understand why I find it normal to expect the unexpected and to foresee that the unpredictable may happen”[2] (p. 22). Over the course of the text, Morin’s readers are also brought to understand why the author has not “completely lost hope” (ibidem). Hence, the beauty of the words of Morin, as a “transversal thinker” (Montuori, 2019, p. 408), is collateral: his lucid analysis does indeed retrace the catastrophic events that have arisen during the pandemic, underlining human beings’ predisposition to dystopian attitudes, yet it simultaneously highlights key steps towards fostering that humanism necessary to change the path. If aesthetics, according to the definition given by its founder Baumgarten (1750), is the “sensory theory”[3] (Tedesco, 2020, p. 9), perhaps the key to grasping the collateral beauty of adverse events lies in implementing knowledge of sensibilities, i.e. that ability to envisage the unexpected (Morin, 2020, 2001), to understand that pain is part of life (Han, 2020), to “think emotions, feel thoughts”[4] (Mortari, 2017), to listen to the Other because it concerns us (Levinas, 2002). This contribution aims to relate some findings of contemporary Italian pedagogy, which, in response to the Covid-19 crisis, are exploring those sensibilities able to deal with the unexpected, considering the concepts of uncertainty, margin and care from a phenomenological perspective (Mortari & Camerella, 2014). Educational practices, brought to the fore by the academic community in the field of education, become an active surveillance tool to provide a response to current issues that is not only theoretical, but also empirical and “operational”[5] – i.e. “capable of directing and orienting its choices in a strategic way in contexts where highly critical situations occur” (Isidori & Vaccarelli, 2013, pp. 16–17).

"Lessons to flight" to start living again. Visual narrative in a state time of emergency. The ridescovery of educational potential

In the months of lockdown, in that suspended time, we recovered the «lessons of the Open» that books have to offer (Recalcati, 2018). Narratives, art expressions which «fit on the shelf» (Lee, 2012, p.170), allowed children to live an enveloping experience (Petit, 2002/2010), to discover fragments of beauty, thus contrasting boredom and educational poverty in its diverse forms. This essay will look into how beauty was unexpectedly found in the visual narrative, nurturing hope to overcome fears, to seize the emergency as an occasion to free oneself of what is excess, to be strong in bravely accepting adversities and to cultivate the ability to look at reality from original perspectives, as the picture book Flight lessons teaches us. Here, through the use of metaphor, the young readers are taught that living is a little like flying and that it is “not necessary to reach the stars to touch the sky” (Vainio, 2008/2021).

The "rediscovery" of the meaning of life in the time of the pandemic

The time of the pandemic is characterized by multiple painful experiences: illness, death, the limitation of personal freedoms, the fear of contagion, widespread impoverishment. It is difficult to talk about the "positive" aspects of an emergency that is not over yet, but during its course it is possible to grasp from those same experiences that characterize it a new opportunity to reflect on aspects of human existence that the consumerist mentality previously placed in the background. The restrictions imposed by the health emergency have led to a collapse in investments and consumption which, if it has complicated the economic situation of many countries, makes it possible to "discover" the possibility that life can pass peacefully even without all the comforts and possibilities previously available. With this new awareness it is possible to reflect on the "philosophical" question of the meaning of life and on what is really "essential" for a possible happiness despite the contingencies of the time we live in.

The statue of Glauco. Reflections on human nature during the pandemic

The statue of Glauco that the sea and the storms have disfigured so as to make its appearance more like a ferocious beast than a god, is the famous image with which Jean Jacques Rousseau, in the Discourse on the origin of inequality, questions himself on Human Nature, in a reflection that will have its purpose both in the political project of the Contract and in the pedagogical project of the Emilio. The image serves in fact to reiterate that that deterioration, that ugliness, is only external and that the statue (the man) has remained in its depths beautiful and good, since in him the feeling of piety, of his own and of his remains unchanged. dignity and the vocation to freedom of others. If this were not the case, there would be no possibility for political democracy and democratic education. The growing social inequalities, the artificialization of feelings and relationships due to technology, as well as the spread, after the pandemic, of a sort of mass "claustrophilia", a love for the closed, for one's own, with the consequent rejection of everything that comes from "outside", which is different, foreign or new, seems instead to give credit to Hobbes's thesis, namely that Human Nature is violent and aggressive and that man is always a wolf for the other man. However, it will be the task of the arts, sciences and, above all, of education, to demonstrate that, under the debris left by the salt, Glauco has remained good and that he can rediscover his true essence, the beauty of his original substance.

The Emergency Pedagogy Atelier: the Afghanistan case. A first practice of social engagement starting from the voices of the protagonists

The article presents the first "Emergency pedagogy atelier" organized by the University of Salento with the collaboration of the Roma Tre University and the University of L'Aquila and with the participation of the founder of the NGO PenPath operating in Afghanistan and connected from here. The initiative was created to propose and verify the effectiveness and functionality of a format conceived in the context of the Siped Emergency Pedagogy working group. The initiative aimed to integrate the more traditionally seminar dimension of in-depth study and dissemination of educational issues with that of the opening of a space-time of direct and live contact with subjects and realities in emergency. Thanks to their direct intervention, it was intended to focus on specific issues which, particularly felt in the context of an emergency, are however of significant general interest. Three, therefore, the central passages: 1) the clarification, in paragraph 1, of the formal horizon (the lenses) with which to look at the phenomenon covered by the Pedagogical Atelier in more and, therefore, the specification of the opportunity to think and engage in a field of reflection and pedagogical practice specifically dedicated to emergency; 2) the definition, in paragraph 2, of a revisable and implementable model for the realization of the meeting where the presence of testimonies, documentation, glimpses of life in an emergency, as well as the activation of systems for monitoring the experience by end users; 3) the centering, also starting from the institutional framework of action of privileged witnesses (paragraph 3), of focused themes (gender issues and education of girls) of particular importance not only for the hosted context but also, for transposition, for reality closest to us (paragraph 4) and in any case not unrelated to the issues dealt with for the specific context in emergency.

Collateral beauty in the wind of truth: reclaiming a new sense of reality

It is beautiful to be able to have the opportunity to allow oneself a doubt on the unquestionability of one's mental habits; it is beautiful to be able to renew one's energy to relate to the world in a way not bent by the banality of convenience and calculation. It is beautiful to realise that one feels the need for beauty as an inspirational motive for one's thinking, feeling and acting, and as a resource towards a new education. The serious pandemic crisis has probably accelerated a necessary but demanding process that takes time to accomplish: that of becoming aware of a reality based on the principle of interconnection and interdependence – of the person with all his/her dimensions, with each other, with the Cosmos. I believe that this new perception of reality – as the result of an experience – can mark a new step for the discourse and pedagogical practice so as to devote itself to a new form of beauty in the search for a ἀλήθεια (aletheia) truth to be configured as a desire for unveiling and deep understanding of the sense of reality, to be nourished in a revitalised interdisciplinarity, with a sense of wonder and amazement for every aspect of life. Care, responsibility and commitment, if animated by joy and love, can only aspire to excellence, giving the person the opportunity to fully realise his or her dignity and humanity.

Nobody is left behind. The beauty of Service Learning

School closures due to COVID-19 have brought significant disruptions to education. Service-learning interventions have offered significant opportunities to reduce and reverse the long-term negative effects and to empower the recovery process of pupils in difficulty. The study was carried out with 869 students enrolled in the Primary Education Sciences master’s degree course at the University of Palermo. The participants have been involved in the planning and implementation of targeted educational courses designed for the “fragile” pupils from 33 different schools in Palermo. The primary level pupils were provided with a total of 60,000 hours of recovery and learning enhancement activities in remote mode. Challenging teaching activities fostered cognitive and learning development of the pupils. The results reveal that the service-learning project led to the rediscovery of the beauty of inclusion, integration, and civic responsibility.

Of stories to overcome fear and poems under the bed or on children's literature at the time of Covid-19

Children’s literature is a valuable instrument to tell boys and girls about the world. Those who write for childhood know well that between the lines of the stories that are intended to him the child gaze can find its own reality, itself, its thoughts, its fears, but Children’s literature is a valuable instrument to tell boys and girls about the world. Those who write for childhood know well that between the lines of the stories that are intended to him the child gaze can find its own reality, itself, its thoughts, its fears, but