Ars docendi 12/2022
Premessa – Vorwort – Foreword [Adami]
Dear readers,
After a very hot summer, we find ourselves once again in the middle of the school year, which is as fascinating as ever, but also very, very busy. Some people prefer to ignore the fact that the workload in schools is increasing year after year.
A few weeks ago, South Tyrol's largest German-language daily newspaper published a letter to the editor in which the writer complained about teachers who, in his opinion, are asking for more and more while working less and less. The best thing to do, I know, would be to throw away that page of the newspaper and forget about it, but perhaps it would be better to give more visibility to our work, so that we can influence the judgement of those who only want to see the image of schools constructed by platitudes.
In addition to good representation, we also need regular exchanges among ourselves to discuss our work and our actions. Only through this constant exchange – even with perhaps abstract or unusual visions – can we generate inspiration and development for our subjects in these challenging times.
In the new issue of Ars docendi, we aim to offer you these opportunities.
We are publishing three essays from the new volume of Δωρεά, which brings together a range of very interesting contributions presented during a conference organised on 26 March 2022 in Bolzano. With this conference, the ADA, the Academia Didactica Atesina, aimed to promote critical reflection on the current teaching of Latin grammar and the importance of grammar lessons for truly learning and understanding languages. The topics of the conference were discussed by 10 Italian and foreign speakers from both schools and universities. Anyone interested in all the contributions should send me an email: Martina.Adami@schule.suedtirol.it. We will gladly send you the publication at no additional cost.
During the conference, a new book of Latin texts for the first years of Latin lessons was also presented, with a significant reduction in grammatical phenomena: Contactus, edited by Austrian teachers Renate Oswald and Renate Glas.
Matthias Korn (Dresden) presents another recently published book of Latin texts in this issue of Ars docendi.
In the last issue of Ars docendi, we also promised to present another model of Latin certification. Bärbel Flaig, one of the promoters of these certifications, explains the Euroclassica model.
A contribution from Cividale presents Myth-Writing, a fascinating project promoted by CLE, which is expected to be extended to other Central European cities and countries in the coming years.
Fabrizio Manco (Marsala) discusses magic and fantasy and the ancient roots of these themes in his essay.
From Trento, we have a text by Maria Pezzo, a highly esteemed colleague who, unfortunately for us, retired in September.
As always, we hope you enjoy reading this issue and ask you to recommend Ars docendi to others who may be interested.
On behalf of the editorial staff
Martina Adami