4.

School and work (*)

Alternating between school and work is an issue currently more real than ever: it changes
the old conception of the school as an island deliberately unrelated to the processes of
economic and productive employment. More than ever, today, school and work have
a need to meet for two reasons: transmit to young people the value of work as an irreplaceable element of freedom and of the individuals social and moral redemption;
and correct their view of schooling as a servant with respect to employment, as an
island deliberately unrelated to the processes of economic and ongoing productivity.
The Moratti Reform provides the youths from 15-18 years of age the opportunity
to realize second cycle courses alternating school and work, as a way to implement
the training courses designed, implemented and evaluated by the school institutions
in collaboration with businesses, with the respective representative associations and
the chambers of commerce, industry, handicrafts and agriculture, which will provide
young people, in addition to basic knowledge, the acquisition of skills expendable in
the labour market. Its the dislocation of important sectors of the learning process
into the working contest. The company becomes a large class room where its possible
to learn while working.
So to have a beneficial experience there should be consultation among schools in the
second degree, institutions (Regions, Provinces, Municipalities) and the labour world
(Confindustria, Unioncamere). Experiment alternation as a teaching method contributes
both to promote the educational success through personalized training and guidance, and
to promote re-orientation and accompany the change from school to the work world.
In the alternating system there are two tutorial figures that should work in synergy connecting the school to the company: a training tutor inside the school institution, who
plays the role of assistance, guidance and verification of the students proper performance
route, and the external training tutor (or companys tutor), who favours the introduction of the students into the operating environment, assisting them in the workplace
and provides the school elements for the monitoring and evaluation of the activities.
In order to achieve the above, three school figures will be fundamental: the Class
Council: to acquire the students and families requests; to acquire data relating to the
social-economic context; to develop personalized path hypotheses. The Teachers
Council: to identify, on the basis of proposals made by individual Class Councils, the
number and type of pathways to activate and insert in the POF; to identify the figures
of the training tutor, of the person responsible for the relations with companies and the
monitoring of the pupils on alternation, and of the components of the projected team
group. The school board: to define the rules necessary to complete the alternation
projects as provided in the POF.

(*) Copyright Edizioni Simone S.p.A. Il brano tratto dal volume 526/4, Competenze linguistiche (Inglese) - Concorso a Cattedre 2012.