2018 is the European Year of Cultural Heritage. One of the main issues declared by Europe is that “Heritage has a big role to play in building the future of Europe. That is one reason why we want to reach out to young people in particular during the European Year.” Firmly agreeing with this, we think that one sign of a healthy community is its coexisting ability to preserve and reinvent its culture—that is, to safeguard its Past and its Cultural Heritage while developing new expressions for current times. Through this project we intend to respond to some issues which we consider quite relevant for the well-being of young generations – as teachers, our main stakeholders. 1.We are noticing that in spite of a constant increase of quickly available sources, there are clear evidences proving a progressive loss of interest towards both tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage among young generations. There is a tendency in many young people to prefer products of mass consumption that are advertised worldwide, including commercial popular music, clothing or fast food – all of them to be found in malls, the most popular meeting places for young people. Yet, we firmly believe that young generations, if conveniently educated and trained, can contribute to local development as they can enhance their interest and energy to address concerns such as heritage management and local development. Their familiarity with ICT can allow them to network and promote such issues. 2. Moreover, we notice that schools are sometimes isolated from their own territory. The project aims to a constant interaction with other components of the community-local municipalities, families, libraries, museums, commercial and industrial bodies, which may significantly provide an added value to the education of young generations and their development as a whole. Moreover, the whole territory and the community will benefit from the activities carried out throughout the project in terms of attention and re-evaluation of tangible and intangible C. H. in danger of decay or oblivion. Our commitment through this project, then, is to let students become aware of the importance to know, preserve and promote C. H. to the benefit of everybody. They will be led to understand that although preservation is often interpreted as stasis, C. H. can represent innovation and advancement while stimulating their sense of entrepreneurship. In order to better succeed in such aims, we turn to opportunities offered by Europe: we know – also thanks to our previous experiences in this field – that Partnerships between schools from different European countries represent a fundamental way of enhancing the whole process described above. As school operators, we strongly believe that one of our main missions is to provide young generations with tools and opportunities in order to help them acquire basic competences, indispensable for a harmonious development and for the acquisition of self-confidence, sense of responsibility and of aware citizenship. Given this premise, we intend to project our activities throughout the two years in such a way that the achievement of our objectives and the production of concrete results is gradual, tangible, effective and consistent with the premise itself. As for our experience, we observed that schools involved in Erasmus+ project always develop significantly in their identity and educative/formative strength. Through this specific project on Cultural Heritage, we think that these goals will be even more evident thanks to the important and fundamental interaction between schools and their territories. We expect that schools, and particularly pupils, will develop awareness of what is around them also in terms of institutions, private and public bodies, places, art, music, traditions and community as a whole.
Our Institute is situated in Barbarano Mossano (province of Vicenza, in the Veneto region), on the feet of the Berici Hills. The school involved in the project is the “Ramiro Fabiani” Lower Secondary school. It has 250 pupils, aged 11 to 14. 40 teachers are working in our school with a Musical Section (Indirizzo Musicale, DM 201/99) activated since 2015. A lot of musical activities are held – concerts inside the school and in the rest homes for elderly people too. 2018 is the European Year of Cultural Heritage. One of the main issues declared by Europe is that “Heritage has a big role to play in building the future of Europe. That is one reason why we reached out to young people in particular during the European Year.” Firmly agreeing with this, we think that one sign of a healthy community is its coexisting ability to preserve and reinvent its culture—that is, to safeguard its Past and its Cultural Heritage while developing new expressions for current times. Through this project, we responded to some issues which we have always considered quite relevant for the well-being of young generations – as teachers, our main stakeholders. We are noticing that despite a constant increase of quickly available sources, clear evidence is proving a progressive loss of interest towards both tangible and intangible Cultural Heritage among young generations. We firmly believed that young generations, conveniently educated and trained by teachers, contributed to local development as they could enhance their interest and energy to address concerns such as heritage management and local development. Their familiarity with ICT allowed them to network and promote such issues. They have always improved their skills in foreign languages, mainly English. Pupils and teachers met elderly people who declaimed, sang or played old melodies, e.g. lullabies, chants, children’s games songs and pupils enhanced awareness on the influence of past/traditional tunes on modern music and understood the importance of past traditional tunes in the modern music we listen to. Moreover, we noticed that schools are sometimes isolated from their territory. We interacted with all the components of the community-local municipalities, families, libraries, museums, commercial and industrial bodies, which may significantly provide an added value to the education of young generations and their development as a whole. Our school regularly interacted with the community on a wide range of activities, e.g. concerts at the Rest Houses for elderly people or institutional events, contests organised by the Municipality. In this last year, due to the Pandemia situation, we couldn’t meet elderly people but we interacted with them using ICT. They were proud to help our students, to answer their questions, to sing with them, above all in a period when they were not close to their family. Pupils and teachers realized that music lived up in our places, in our countries’ landmarks, promoting local tourism too. Moreover, the whole territory and the community benefited from the activities carried out throughout the project in terms of attention and re-evaluation of tangible and intangible C. H. in danger of decay or oblivion. Our commitment through this project has been to let students become aware of the importance to know, preserve and promoting C. H. to the benefit of everybody. To better succeed in such aims, we turned to opportunities offered by Europe. Partnerships between schools from different European countries represented a fundamental way of enhancing the whole process described above. We exchanged experiences, didactic materials and we shared the use of new resources. Moreover, the knowledge of the cultural heritage of different countries has been increased as well as the arise tolerance and respect towards them. As for our experience, we observed that schools involved in the Erasmus+ project always increased significantly in their identity and educative/formative strength. Through this specific project on Cultural Heritage, schools and particularly pupils, developed awareness of what is around them also in terms of institutions, private and public bodies, places, art, music, traditions and community as a whole.