These are times dominated by neoliberalism ideologies. Young people grow up with a distinct notion of free choice, of instrumental rationality, of the manufacturability of life. Society, of which education is part, teaches them to jump hoops, to meet demands, to profile the self and think in terms of economic efficiency. The self is thrown into these complex structures that simulate free choice but is actually a simulacrum of freedom. In education there is an increasing call for the human agency to relate to this complex society, reimbursing the agenda of Bildung anew. But all this surpasses the fact that the consequences of many of our choices cannot be foreseen in this complex society. Thereby, young people should be taught to have a more nuanced view on freedom, choice, and accountability, so that ‘failure’ is not the consequence of wrong choices, but an inevitability in life in complex society. We shall promote an empowerment that is about sharing our painful experiences and successes in vital communities; to focus on interconnectedness is to develop more and rich ways to experience freedom by experiencing the safety of the community. This project aims to make young people in Europe aware of different ways in which they can and should be dependent people, group members, and social beings. We plan to involve teams of 30 students and 6-7 teachers for each participant school: we will be engaging different profiles, with a special attention to disadvantaged students who suffer for social exclusion processes; teachers will be coming from different areas of expertise since the competencies which will be developed are cross-cultural and the whole process will be centered on methodologies which are intended to promote the student’s deep learning and awareness of the addressed issues. To increase awareness of the interdependence of all participants, the primary output of this project will be a manifesto, a so-called “declaration of dependence”: this will be the way to go public with the insights obtained during the project. The action will be divided into three themes that represent a build-up from micro-level research and reflection to macro-level exploration. Each theme will generate its own results, all publicly logged and disseminated through a Wordpress website. 1) MAD 1 - Interpersonal relationships Objective: awareness of individual social networks - learning about interdependence on a personal level. In this phase, the participants will be working on their social networks, mapping them and situating themselves into their world of relationships, discovering the bonds that keep the network together; 2) MAD 2 - Civic virtues Objective: promoting shared "civic virtues" by raising awareness of the values underpinning a compassionate community - learning about interdependence on a community level. In this phase the focus will be on communities and their shared identity: the students will be discussing the nature of a community and will be experimenting good practices in civic participation - social service, assistance, volunteering; 3) MAD 3 - The invisible force: interdependence on a societal level Objectives: raising awareness of the complexity of human interdependence in large groups - Acquiring knowledge and skills in order to express citizenship through bottom-up strategies of influence. During this final phase the participants will be reflecting on the effects of the large groups on individuals, starting from a deep analysis of the impact of media communication on the building of common opinions, to end with an exploration of the means that can promote a bottom-up participation to the decision-making processes, with special regards to the European Citizens Initiative tool. This project has a highly participative educational character in order to embody its primary objectives. It is not a matter of pupils meeting demands and goals set by teachers, but about setting shared goals and meeting them together. Students will play an equal part in curriculum design, as will teachers have an equal part in curriculum execution. This social constructivist approach to teaching will ensure this projects innovative character. Methodologies as action learning, problem-based learning and debate will be widely used during the development of this learning proposal: the evaluations will be carried out through PDCA sessions which will promote deep and visible learning among the participants and the other stakeholders from the addressed target groups (school community - students, staff, and parents -, civil society representatives, policymakers). The sustainability of the project is all about its capability to renew the relationships between schools and local community, through an active involvement of external stakeholders from the civil society in the development of the project: as long as a new cooperation will spring out of this experience, this shared action will be continuing far after the project’s ending.
The MAD project was designed to raise proper awareness of the dependence of each individual on the others: this is something we daily rely on, though it could be not that visible - given the neoliberal ideology in which we live, that makes it quite hard for all of us to think in a way that is not solely individualistic. We thought it would be good to work with our students in order to flip the current vision of society - badly compromised with a hyper-individualistic perspective, in which each individual is living an experience of apparent freedom, but in the end, is losing the bonds with the others that make society even possible. We needed to address our communities with activities, experiences, and reflections which could highlight the importance of mutual support, cooperation, empathy, and compassion to others. We also needed to promote active citizenship and proactive behaviors within local communities and groups, starting from the grassroots level to a higher frame - and, eventually, reaching out to the European dimension as a valuable horizon for a new international community. Our students were involved in a three-stage experience: MAD 1 was about making the students aware of their own social network - the proximity relationships such as family, friends were explored and reflected upon, as a basis for the growth of a responsible sense of ownership to a community of values. During this stage, the students have been working on the exploration of their closest social network, reflecting on the many ways we use to link with each other, how we build our opinions and how we categorize each other – the processes involved in the creation of our ingroups and outgroups. The main result of this stage was the Social Network Game – a tool designed and developed by the students from IIS Bona to create a visible scheme of the relationship within a group, to enforce the idea of the many ways in which all of us are connected to each other. MAD 2 was about discovering the social networks in each one’s local community, with special regard to the associations and enterprises of the third sector, working with disadvantaged people to promote their participation in civil society. Each partner school started an exploration of their surroundings, getting to know a lot of different actors working in the promotion of welfare and active citizenship, discovering many interesting experiences in the field of mutual support and volunteer work. Through visits, interviews, dialogues with these operators, and guided reflections, we had the opportunity to deepen our knowledge of our local communities. The most relevant goal of this stage was the “MAD week” in Apeldoorn, where students, teachers, and school managers had the chance to blend together and take part in volunteer services, along with enterprises and volunteers from the town and the surrounding areas committed to strengthening the social bonds and helping the disadvantaged. MAD 3 was supposed to be the final leap to a wider horizon – interdependence on an international level, with special regards to the mean provided by the European Union to promote civic participation and active citizenship. We managed to lead the training sessions which were scheduled to take place during the international LTT in Latvia. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 breakout, most of the planned activities had to be rescheduled. All of the partner countries had to abide by the rules from the national governments; in many cases, all the non-curricular activities were frozen or shut down. Therefore, we applied for an extension of the project terms to February 2021, hoping for a better situation. When it finally got clear that the scheduled activities were no longer sustainable, we had to change plans: we were supposed to deliver a Manifesto of Dependence at the end of MAD 3, so we focused on this target and worked to a final virtual LTT, which eventually led us to the creation of a shared Manifesto, which was built using digital tools – the output was a mixtape of footages that the students from the 5 partner countries prepared, to express the meaning of the project and its impact on their lives and their choices concerning their civic commitment. In the long term, the MAD experience allowed the schools to build fruitful relationships with local actors working in the third sector: the project made it possible to initiate meaningful spin-off activities, which are currently in the process of being integrated within the educational profile of the involved schools. The MAD experience did also promote an agreement about some core values that each partner school decided to adopt within their daily work: participation, mutual support, cooperation and responsibility have been elected as MAD core values, to be implemented through the schools’ rules and to be actively addressed through specific actions which each school committed itself to deliver on a yearly basis.