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Born in Macerata (Italy),
she moved to Holland in 1998. Back in Italy since 1999, lives in Premeno
(Province of Verbania). Ms. Quintili has been an elementary school teacher
for over twenty years; her work also includes teaching adults, senior
citizens, students with specific educational needs and foreign students.
She participated in many didactical-educational projects, among which are:
• EU Socrates-Comenius
project, didactic circles of Macerata and Verbania (Italy);
• an expression-linguistic project on literary geners for children’s
literature (comics, fairy tales, legends, stories and novels);
• the ‘Libriamoci’ project, generating ideas for and building a book for
children, within the ‘La Scuola Adotta un Monumento’ (The School Adopts
a Monument) project for the conservation of Italian artistic and
cultural patrimony – both projects done for the Macerata school district
authority.
Ms. Quintili writes poetry
and has also written ‘Un Dono da Scoprire’ (A Gift to Discover) a short
story about inter-religious matters for young children. She attended many
professional updating courses and formation courses for teachers offered
by the several Italian and foreign educational institutions – mainly
concerning the teaching and learning of foreign languages. Furthermore,
she is dedicated to inter-cultural and diversity education, religious and
spiritual education, peace education and non-formal education. She is also
interested in art, philosophy and Oriental religions and cultures and
takes part in various initiatives for the actualization of the “Spiritual
Forum” and about integration of traditional and alternative medicines.
Recently she has been
working in three educational-didactical projects: “A peaceful future” in
2003, “Searching for peace” in 2004, “Peace in the Outer and Inner
Environment” in 2005, all inspired by Lama Gangchen’s principles for
better living, in order to create a Peace Culture, which may bring hope to
future generations, and by his teachings about non violent medicine and
inner peace, which is the most solid foundation for world peace.
EDUCATION PROJECT
“RAINBOWS FOR PEACE”
THE POSITIVE INTERDEPENDENCE OF ALL PHENOMENA
PREMISE
There is a famous phrase by
Lao Tsu: “What looks like the end of everything to the caterpillar is
called a butterfly by the rest of the world.” Something that we don’t
necessarily like, like the rain, produces a “positive side effect”, a
wonderful rainbow, when it comes into contact with the sunlight. In the
same way, when we have to face difficulties, this can make us grow and
renew ourselves. On a lager scale, similarly, highly complex negative
chain reactions that come from an infinity of causes can be transformed
into positive synergies of the outer and inner environment by producing
“virtuous circles”.
MAIN EDUCATIONAL GOAL:
Knowing oneself and the
others through PEACE EDUCATION, environmental education and health
education as effective means to create positive interdependent relations
and to reduce as much as possible negative side effects in certain areas.
The overall aim is to sustain the goals and programs of UNICEF and of the
UN Decade for Education and Sustainable Development.
THE STUDENTS
The students involved in
this program are special care students at the Istituto Auxologico Italiano
of Piancavallo-Verbania, requiring special care for their nutrition
behavior and for problems with their growth. There are also other schools
affiliated to hospitals that will network with this project.
TOPICS
Drawing inspiration from the
goals of this congress, we chose to work on the following aspects:
SCIENCE
EDUCATION
SPIRITUALITY
COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY
ECONOMY AND ENVIRONMENT
DEFINING THE AIMS
Ensuring the right to
health and education
Reducing the school
problems of the students in the hospital through activities that develop
and enhance their individual skills and social aptitudes. We promote
small-group cooperative learning and give every child a job that is
necessary for the well functioning of the collective whole.
Overcoming the children’s
isolation in the hospital. We try to create a network of friendships
between the children and different schools. In this, we are helped by
multimedia learning tools and by networking projects with various school
institutions.
Promoting the integration
of children who have difficulties or who are in need of special care.
SCIENCE
Contents:
From a scientific point of
view, we analyze human development and the evolution of some natural
phenomena:
The phenomenon of the
rainbow
The composition of light
The metamorphosis of the
caterpillar into a butterfly
The alphabet of the
butterflies
Basics in nutritional
education, physical exercise and health.
Goals:
Learning to do group work
with scientific research methods such as the confrontation fo results -
origin and definition of the rainbow; creating a rainbow by composing
and decomposing light; why does the rainbow take an arch form?
Learning to share
different experiences: Newton’s disc; the working of the prism;
refraction; laboratories:The nature of the colors; the emotions
connected to the colors; coloring with plants.
Learning to recognize the
causes that preserve good health: preventing child obesity and
cardio-vascular diseases by monitoring one’s nutritional behavior and
life-style.
PEACE EDUCATION
Contents:
Experiencing things from the
point of view of someone else and learning to respect the others. Reading
and writing on the lives of great people who have transformed their
reality and who have become universal examples of peace.. Recognizing how
they were able to transform difficulties and disadvantages into “positive
side-effects”.
Goals:
Learning to understand the
interdisciplinary dimensions of a problem
Learning to deal with
conflicts through a ritual that uses symbols and that creates spaces for
dialogue, mediation, negotiation. E.g. “Preventive introduction”: ”What
the others say about me; “The Book of Conflicts”: were the solutions
that the group arrived at in dealing with problems are recorded; “The
trashcan of anger”: when any member of the group feels a disturbing
emotion, he or she represents it graphically on a peace of paper. This
is then thrown into the trashcan with the accompaniment of the whole
group’s applauses.
Learning the principles of
a healthy living together in society.
Learning to switch
attention from emotional resentments to a reflection of events.
Studying the non-violent
behavior of great personalities like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Papa
Giovanni Paolo II to be inspired and to find food for thoughts.
Recognizing how violence
is rooted in ignorance, fear, in a lack of understanding. Therefore,
learning appropriate techniques to control and to transcend violence.
SPIRITUALITY
Contents:
Keeping the examples of the
caterpillar, the butterfly and the rainbow as metaphors for positive
interdependence, we start a course in cooperative learning. Hereby, we
promote the goals of a deeper self-knowledge, of a greater capacity to
harmonize one’s life with the environment and the people around us. In
case of conflicts we sit down around the “Table of Peace” to explore the
different advantages that different solutions to a problem entail. Then,
we look for a compromise that suits the needs of both sides.
Learning to tolerate, to accept and to appreciate various cultures and
opinions.
Goals:
Discovering one’s
potentials as well as one’s limitations, and learning to accept them.
Accepting the difficulties
that result from differences.
Learning to know the
Islamic culture.
Recognizing our prejudices
and transforming them by recognizing the value of others and by
respecting them.
Learning to listen in an
active way: this is fundamental to understand the point of view of the
others.
Learning to talk in a
group: practicing interviews with role-switching; working on
communication by getting together in pairs or as a group to gain a
better understanding of one’s conflict patterns.
Learning to negotiate and
to take group decisions.
Producing cooperative
activities in which all can participate by creating Peace Flags.
Understanding that there
can be no individual success that is not also a group success and
realizing that this also represents an instance of a positive
interdependency.
SOCIETY & COMMUNICATION
Contents:
What does our society
consider either as a “caterpillar” or as a “butterfly”? We analyze the
condition of being ill and try to emphasize the positive side effects of
the healing experience. We will examine the cultural bias promoted by the
media: the stranger, the differences, the ideals of beauty. The topic of
diet and self-image. “If I was a caterpillar…” seeking self-knowledge as a
basis for meeting and understanding the others.
Goals:
Learning to document and
to present the obtained results: realizing hypertexts and multimedia
products; sharing and diffusing the produces materials through
videoconferences or softwares for cooperative learning. (e.g. the FLE3
system).
Learning to find
informations from various innovative sources: researching Internet for
the various discussed topics: legends about the rainbow in different
cultures and religions; nutrition in history and in the various
cultures, etc..
Participating in group
games in which self-awareness and the awareness of the others is
promoted.
Learning to reflect
critically on the tastes, preferences, habits and attitudes one has
towards food.
Understanding why certain
pathologies entail that we cannot eat certain foods.
ENVIRONMENT & ECONOMY
Contents:
Reading and commenting a
text on the responsible use of the resources and on the poor countries’
debt burden. Realizing new objects from recycling material. The principles
of trash sorting and collecting. The “global cake”. Hunger and obesity: a
global survey. The story of the rich man and the poor people. The
physiognomy and function of the Non-Governmental Organizations.
Goals:
Recognizing the importance
of socially useful and responsible forms of behavior like long distance
adoptions; becoming a sponsor of the UNICEF projects, etc..
Planning the saving of
energy, recycling, and protecting the environment.
Learning to realize
constructive activities for an inner and outer balance.
Promote the children’s
awareness to the problems of the third world and to the exploitation of
the natural resources by the rich countries.
Experiencing how things
can be transformed into something beautiful and useful for man
(recycling).
We would like to thank the teaching staff of the Scuola Media ed
Elementare di Piancavallo for helping with this project by sharing
material resources and experiences: Trovato Palmina, Torelli Rita, Romeo
Maria, Matella Margherita and Barigozzi Franco. |