Albenga, University at school: territorial laboratory of reading and creativity
A continuity project with the University of Genoa kicks off at the Diocesan School Center "Redemptoris Mater": traveling picture books, Rodari's fantasy duo, teacher training and involvement of students from the Liceo delle Scienze Umane.
University in school
In this article:
Territorial laboratory for research, updating and innovation
by Stefania Trifilio
The continuity project, proposed for the current school year to schools
Kindergarten "Ester Siccardi," "St. George" and first A and second A and B classes.
Of the Primary School of the Diocesan School Center "Redemptoris Mater" in
Albenga, was born from a collaboration with the University of Genoa to be precise.
with the Department of Education and the chair of Literature for
Childhood. The center's pedagogue, Stefania Trifilio, explains that it is a
"traveling" reading workshop whose primary objective is to nurture
the imagery of a childhood thinking in the grand Sea of Stories. It is actually
Of a university territorial laboratory i.e., a collaborative research space,
updating and innovation; born out of contacts and sharing with the University is
designed to create a bridge between academia, school and community. Teachers and
children will exchange several picture books in the early months of the school year and
it will be great surprise for everyone to open the "big bag" to find out the title of the book to read
and then move on to other children. Secondary school students also
grade and those of the Human Sciences High School of the "Redemptoris" School Center.
Mater" will be involved in the project. The first ones as listeners, in fact, at the end of the year.
will welcome kindergarten and elementary school children, protagonists of the
project, who will become storytellers of the stories they themselves have drawn and
written using the "two little words" that the teachers entrusted to them. It is actually
Of the "fantastic pair" an original and original way of thinking and writing. As
teacher Gianni Rodari pointed out in his writing. Grammar of the imagination,
consists of juxtaposing two semantically distant words to generate a story,
stimulating creativity and divergent thinking. It will then happen to know "the dog
selling closets" or "walking the chocolate road"! High school students
of the Human Sciences will instead be invited, through the conduct of the Pathways
for Transversal Skills and Orientation renamed by Decree-Law no.
127 of September 9, 2025 in School Work Training, to directly experience the activity and reflect on the pedagogical meanings of narrative play. Once the
first part of the project, school teachers will be engaged in a
refresher course on the "fantastic pair" of which Rodari speaks precisely.
The union of semantically distant words such as "road" and "chocolate," a
seemingly meaningless juxtaposition, creates a short-circuit forcing
thought to imagine new, unexpected relationships, and this is where stories are born
of children that often leave adults speechless. Reflecting on the value
educational of a didactics that can help to look at reality from perspectives
unusual and to break the patterns of habitual thinking, it will be the commitment of the Teachers
During the refresher course. Other cue for in-depth training.
will be offered by Novalis' "fantastic," which is not the fantastic of the literary genre,
but it is the conception of a logic of imagination that creates and transforms reality,
opposed to rationalist logic. This "fantastic" is based on the idea that.
imagination can unite opposites (finite and infinite, spirit and matter) and that the
poetry, being the creative act par excellence, is the vehicle of this
transformation, revealing the true meaning of existence. Therefore, the project
Calls every human being to narrate himself!
The course will then enter its final operational phase, and it is the children who will unleash the
their imagination and to make creativity accessible through thinking, writing and
the drawing of stories and the making of their picture books. The project "The University at
school" in summary says that school is cultural education and instruction viz.
love of knowledge and knowledge that calls each of us to overcome patterns
usual for different living!
Thanks to University of Genoa professor Anna Antoniazzi, professor
full professor of the Department of Education, and pedagogist Dr.
Marco Scarella, subject matter expert for the chair of Children's Literature.
