We often ask ourselves what the future of school is and the recent pandemic has led us to ask ourselves some new questions on the matter. Among the responses that the educational and social system has been able to give is the perhaps more conscious valorization of an already known pedagogical tool: community educational agreements. What can they give us in a future no longer troubled by the emergency?
We have had the opportunity several times to talk about the importance of young people’s bond with the school community to which they belong, in which they experience themselves as active and aware citizens and from which they project themselves towards the future. The recent experience of isolation due to the pandemic – fortunately now behind us – has given us the opportunity to reflect once again on the function of school as a social space, in which we participate with those fundamental skills that are learned formally and non-formally here . Starting from these findings we must then ask ourselves a rather challenging question: how to enhance the social role of the young generations in a short and long term perspective?
Heterogeneity as an educational force
There is no doubt that young people, whose number has been reduced as a result of the birth rate decline, are an asset to be protected and valorised in the interests of the entire social fabric.
To respond to this need for protection and promotion, the fight against educational poverty and the strengthening of training opportunities are certainly two cornerstones in which to invest to encourage and support the participation of young people in the life of the communities to which they belong, at school and in the local area. In this commitment it is the school that has an irreplaceable and unique role. In fact, no institution has the possibility and capacity like this one to reach the entire youth population, welcoming them within its walls for the entire developmental span independently of every socio-environmental factor (family of origin, social condition, etc.), in a inclusive perspective that increasingly characterizes its identity. How much the training, both didactic and social and civic, that one receives at school affects the individual ability to involve himself in social participation activities in relation to the level of education is demonstrated by rather clear data relating to three areas of commitment: environment and rights, cultural and recreational associations, volunteering.
Percentage of young people over 14 years old by educational qualification and social activity (data referring to 2020)
The reasons for the relationship between these factors and the centrality of the school system are easily understood if we consider how children and young people are in the school ecosystem – anything but simple! – are called to interact directly and indirectly with different figures: classmates, teachers, school managers, school staff, parents. Furthermore, they are often confronted with other experiences that intervene in various ways in their training: specific projects proposed from the outside, initiatives open to the territory, etc.
This heterogeneity is certainly stimulating but can pose another question: how to respond to the complexity that can arise from it, guaranteeing educational and training continuity for our young people?
Educational agreements as a training model
An effective response lies in community educational agreements, whose pedagogical value has already been known and recognized for many years but which with the recent pandemic have had the opportunity to assert themselves once again for their educational and social relevance.
Thinking of educational and training action as a pact around which the attention of different subjects (schools, families, groups with different characteristics) but all oriented towards promoting the well-being of young people is aggregated means acting on two equally important levels: building networks collaborative that make specific differences an added value and not a reason for fragmentation; organize training environments in which knowledge and skills are acquired by involving children through active action in which everyone can participate with their own learning style.
Making children an active part of an educational alliance means for them to have the opportunity to acquire an increasingly greater awareness of their own learning process. On the school side, creating a pact involves experimenting with alternative pedagogical models and action methodologies different from those based on consolidated schemes, to identify theoretical and operational tools that increasingly respond to the training needs of young people engaged in the not always easy task of building their own life path.
