First of all, let's ask ourselves what the historian does (in-depth analysis):
The first operation carried out by the historian is to place the event along a chronological axis: to put the fact back into perspective in order to periodize it.
The second operation is to identify a horizontal coordinate, putting the fact in connection with another or similar ones. The foibe is part of a process of the immediate post-war period that is that of revenge: a process that involves 12 million people, as exodus, and about 2,000,000 as victims. Therefore, something inescapable, to be talked about, but which has nothing to do with the extermination of the Jews and the Shoah, because the Shoah is another process, is part of another system of massacres, another liquidation mechanism. It is important to know how to compare.
From the point of view of historical research, however, taking the chronological coordinate and putting it in relation to the spatial coordinate is not enough. It is also necessary to know how to search and select the sources, which means, using the Internet, knowing how to surf. Who provides the students with maps for this navigation? Who prepares these maps, the tools, the tools to use the information on the web? Is it an individual problem not to let the children navigate "freely"? Or is it more a social and cultural problem? Can the teacher be left alone in the making of the maps? Shouldn't he have assistance from Administrations or Training Bodies, such as Universities or Institutes?
In the eighties, there was great enthusiasm for the ideals and practices of sharing: I believe the time has come to recover it, but without the strong expectations of the time, because then it was expected that a "revolution from below" could replace the tasks of the administration.
However, it is necessary to resume the ideals and practices of sharing: didactic cooperation must be relaunched because we are part of a network, that of institutes and commanded bodies, that can help to share the tools for the construction of ateliers and didactic laboratories, that is to say, to build didactics on maps using the network.
Mythologies
The first myth, which appears periodically in schools, is that of self-teaching (in-depth study): every time a novelty appears, it is thought to be self-teaching. The "attic" of the teachers is full of didactic "wreckage" and disappointments. The head of the teachers is like an "attic" full of objects, to which everyone has dedicated time, is passionate, has invested his resources, his work. Each new tool only requires new didactic strategies. And these require research, investment and resources.
The myth of the self-teachability of the Internet is difficult to fight because it is fuelled by common opinion, supported in turn by industrial and political interests and reinforced by the myth of low cost. Old books cost too much, weigh too much: today it's the turn of tablets. But how much does it cost to provide all schools with adequate equipment, to distribute a tool to all students, to provide teachers and students with adequate preparation?
An interactive workshop with tablets, for example on the subject of brigandage, carried out by students and teachers, requires much more intense work in terms of hours than similar work with pen and paper. Therefore, there are installation costs and special structures that, if they do not constantly see the presence of a historian who works with the training agencies, they risk giving a product that, compared to the old communication, is of much lower quality.
Another myth is that of "do-it-yourself", an example of which is the book in progress created by Salvatore Giuliano, Dean of the Ettore Majorana Institute in Brindisi. "Finally, we can build our own learning tools, we can make our own books. Inside this misunderstanding, however, there are some problematic alternatives. What is at stake?
The story on one hand as a coherent tale of a certain period, or a patchwork of facts and problems, collected in the Internet supermarket? When I build and imagine that the circuit of the didactic material is a circuit entirely managed by the teacher, then do we not detach ourselves from the circuit, from the scientific control? Should the reports I enter into the program be professional reports of a given knowledge or not? Or is everything reduced to a para-professional knowledge far from places and research centers?
And finally, the myth of the cloud is developing, which brings with it many problems, related to the theme of control and responsibility of content, as well as issues related to the commercial interests of publishers.
In fact, it is happening at a European level that publishing houses are diversifying their work: partly on paper, partly on websites. But entering and extricating oneself from the mass of materials on the sites of the publishing houses is not at all easy. The same applies to manuals. There is the manual with the signature of an author who takes responsibility for the text and instead of manuals that are mere editorial products.
to be continued in the next part