Crises are not only punctual moments, chapters of history, which we include here and there in the overall narrative.
Crises can innervate and periodize this narrative. They constitute a privileged point of view, because they allow us to articulate it in simple, effective, easily comprehensible moments and, a fundamental fact for the formative processes, they open to the present world and to the problems we live in. They allow us, therefore, to talk about the past, to study it and - without present-day forcing - to arrive at the elaboration of new points of view, to observe the questions of today.
The dossier is closed by two tools specifically designed for teachers. The first is a glossary to which Marida Brignani, Tito Menzani, Lorena Mussini and Giulia Ricci have patiently and acutely awaited. It will allow teachers and students to find effective and rapid explanations of vocabulary, that of economic history, often alien to the current training of professors. The second will certainly be the tool for online information and classroom research, carried out on reliable and rich sites, with many multimedia materials.
The dossiers of Novecento.org are born directly in the field, from the training opportunities organized by Insmli, and from the work of the teachers (commanded by the network, but also in service in schools), who, close to the lessons of historians, prepare the teaching materials and, often, test them in the classroom. The first two (Digital History and Crisis) will be joined during the year by the Contemporary Mediterranean (the Summer School in Venice, who's a presentation you can see in this issue). Over time, they will form a very rich and flexible library.
This library includes the materials that you can consult in the section "Hypermuseum". In this issue you will find exhibitions on the Roots of the Future and on Youth and the Constitution. Visiting an online exhibition is a way to find ideas, photos, documents. Also, a way to train students to a "smart" visit, providing them with suggestions for research, exploration tasks. Or, creatively, proposals for "rearrangement"; or teaching them to write a review.
On these more technical aspects, the section "Didactics in Class" takes part. In this section we present the works of the network, carried out with the classes or within the classes, but also works and reports that the teachers will send us. It is our "good practice bank". In this issue, we will talk about war, but from two points of view, often marginal in common sense, as relevant today in historical research: women and children.
Finally, to reflect on didactic issues, this issue proposes two sections: "Thinking didactics", focused on digital issues in the classroom; and "Public use of history", with two interventions that capture some of the themes, which in the coming years will be central. The First World War, which will be - together with the landing in Normandy and the 70th anniversary of the Resistance - one of the pervasive anniversaries of the next school year, and the "very contemporary" history: the one that many would like, but fear to teach. In this issue we are talking about the '70s: it will be our commitment, over time, to fill with numerous materials this serious gap in the training of teachers, and in school practice.