The Sustainable Development Goals are a collection of 17 global goals designed to be the “ blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. They are related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, justice and, of course, education.
The Sustainable Development Goal n. 4 underlines that Quality Education must be considered the foundation to creating sustainable development.Over 265 million children in the world are currently out of school and 22 %of them are of primary school age. Furthermore , a high percentage of children who are attending schools are lacking basic skills in reading and math. The reasons for lack of quality education are due to different causes, among them poor conditions, lack of adequately trained teachers and equity issues related to opportunities provided to rural children. Achieving the Goal n. 4 targets is a challenge for all of us, teachers, students, parents and the current changing society. The question is how we can shape a better future for mankind. The answer is with a vision to create an educational environment that engages deep intellectual, moral and spiritual stimulation. If school has the moral duty to develop socially responsible citizens, education has the duty to develop students as critical thinkers and lifelong learners.
The future is not predictable and it is very uncertain but we need to be open and ready for it. School needs to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, for technologies that have not yet been designed, to solve problems which have not yet been submitted. Students need to develop curiosity, resilience, imagination,. They need to respect the ideas of others but also to cope with failure. They need to be motivated to get a good job and a good income but also to care about the well-being of their friends and families, and their planet.
Education can provide learners with the competences they need, to shape their own lives and contribute to the lives of others. For this reason, the OECD, Organization foelr Economic Cooperation and Development, has launched The Future of Education and Skills 2030 project to find out how best to prepare a broad set of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values for students. We hope that Italian schools will give their contributions in order to create “design principles “for changes in curricula and education systems that will be relevant in different countries over time. I would like to end my article with the quotation that can be found at the beginning of the long 2012 Report on the US Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, taken by a six-year old boy from Poland “Sustainable development : it means that everybody does something for the world“.
MANUELA RIVETTI Laureata in Lingue e Letterature Straniere presso l’Università degli Studi di Torino, ho conseguito le abilitazioni all’insegnamento per le classi di concorso A45 e A46, lingua inglese nella scuola secondaria di primo grado e lingua e cultura inglese nella secondaria di secondo grado. Ho inoltre conseguito l’abilitazione all’insegnamento nella scuola dell’infanzia e la doppia abilitazione nella scuola primaria, sia come docente su posto comune che come docente di inglese.La lingua inglese e l’insegnamento sono la mia passione, e per questo ho proseguito il mio percorso con un Corso di Perfezionamento in Didattica delle Lingue Straniere.A partire dal 2009 ho svolto diversi corsi di formazione per i docenti della scuola primaria in qualità di tutor per lo sviluppo delle competenze linguistiche--comunicative e metodologico – didattiche presso l’ USR Piemonte. Nell’anno scolastico 2012-13 sono stata la referente del Progetto Comenius Regio “Boosting Knowledge Through Music “, svolto in collaborazione con alcune scuole del Devon, tra cui un istituto “for special needs”, che mi ha permesso di approfondire la conoscenza del sistema scolastico inglese e della cultura anglosassone in materia di insegnamento - apprendimento.Dal 2007 mi occupo di Orientamento scolastico e di continuità come Funzione strumentale. Ho partecipato a vari progetti sulla costruzione del curricolo verticale coordinati dal prof. Martin Dodman e lo scorso anno scolastico ho fatto parte del suo gruppo di lavoro per la correzione nazionale delle prove Invalsi di lingua inglese. Condivido il motto di Edgar Morin, “meglio una testa ben fatta che ben piena”, insieme a quello di William Butler Yeats, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire”.