Periodical n.6 November/December 2016

FOCUS: Education and psychoanalysis

edited by Claudia Cacchioni

 

Introduction:

Memories for the future of psychoanalysis serving education

 

Claudia Cacchioni

 

 

 

Between education and psychoanalysis: a fertile collaboration

 

Vlasta Polajaz

 

The first children's educational institutions based on the psychoanalytical theories of development offered by Sigmund Freud came to light after the First World War, in two different socio-political realities: the first in Moscow and the second in Cambridge. They demonstrate on one hand the pedagogical fervour aroused by the psychoanalyst, and on the other the difficulties and contradictions involved in transferring this to educational practice.

 

 

Sabina Spielrein, child psychoanalyst

Contributions to the understanding of the child psyche

 

Rita Corsa

 

An authentic pioneer of child psychoanalysis, Sabina Spielrein is a figure rich in scientific and narrative inspiration. Also through a meticulous self-analysis of her own childhood education, she is appreciated for a number of original intuitions on the knowledge of the developmental psyche, which the theoretical apparatus of psychoanalysis of the time was not yet ready to welcome.

 

 

 

“La Casetta” in Trieste and the educator as a “transitional subject”   

 

Serena Bontempi

 

The pedagogy of relations and psychoanalysis are the foundations of the educational principles of this preschool, where the staff are trained according to a model of affection, learning and sharing of emotional and cognitive experiences. The practice of observing children becomes an important opportunity for observing oneself, and the relationship between the well-being of the child and the educator.

 

 

 

Tales of educators…

 

Gabriella Bertolini, Alessia Varesano

 

The countertransference of the educator is not necessarily an obstacle, but a vehicle of communication for understanding the reactions of annoyance adults may have towards children, the origin of feelings and emotions. Telling of the evolution of a difficult educational relationship, with the help of a supervisor, is a device for both learning and self-knowledge.

 

 

 

Giovanni and his mother

 

Serena Bontempi

 

How many things we can find in a single drawing, and what it means for a mother and a child to leave each other and find each other every day. Sometimes it is not easy for a parent to separate their own emotional states from that of their child, and may even go as far as to distort the true meaning of what the child is communicating about his own well-being. This is what happened between Giovanni and his mother, through a drawing.

 

 

Educating to relations with fairy tales that help to grow up

The work of Alba Marcoli

 

Maria Rosaria Monaco

 

Alba Marcoli was a clinical psychologist with a Jungian background and a long-standing teacher of English, who in her work wrote and used fairy tales for adults which talk to the child in all of us. Her ideas and her method, experimented in many private and institutional contexts, offer much food for educational thought.

 

 

The seeds of Alba Marcoli

Groups with parents, between education and psychotherapy

 

Elena Pezzoli, the mothers of the Alba Marcoli group

 

We are women who have had the opportunity to meet Alba Marcoli and take part in her groups of parents; we share the fact of being mothers, while what makes us different is our age - there are at least three generations of us, and the length of time we have been attending her groups. We have tried to tell our experience, integrated by personal memories and some of her brief theorisations.

 

 

TOPICS

 

The violence of abandonment, and that of taking care

 

Andrea Canevaro

 

Every violence can and must provoke a reaction of outrage. Even more so when the victim is weak and vulnerable. This statement of principle must also drive us to learn to read violence. In the story of the “Wild Boy of Aveyron”, who became a founding myth of our special pedagogy, we can distinguish two types of violence: that of abandonment and that, paradoxically, of taking care.

 

 

 

A look north: educational theories and practices in a Danish nursery

 

Rossana Puccio

 

A work placement experience in Kastaniehuset (“the chestnut house”), a preschool institution in Copenhagen for children aged 0-6, offers some indicators for a pedagogy oriented to promoting the autonomy of children, the connection with nature and the outside environment, attention to times and experiences. And it leads us to reflect on educational professionalism.

 

 

Natural spaces

Notes on designing school exteriors

 

Monica Guerra

 

Designing outdoor spaces must start with a preliminary reflection on the relationship between educational services and schools on one hand and the natural environment on the other, in order to focus attention and develop favourable intentionalities towards a profitable educational and teaching experience which dialogues with the proposals offered indoors.

 

 

Useful English language: language users in preschools

 

Licia Masoni

 

The importance of the relational and everyday dimension of experiences of the approach to the English language in preschools, in the light of recent literature on the learning of a second language, places the central role on the class teacher who is competent in L2, rather than a mother-tongue teacher from outside the school.

 

 

 

EXPERIENCES

 

Italian as an L2 in early childhood

A laboratory of experience: the words of food

 

Roberta Nepi

 

The attention to sensoriality and the natural curiosity of children are the focal point of this workshop which aimed to develop knowledge of the Italian language among children of non-Italian mother tongue at the nursery. A taste workshop, able to involve all sensory channels in order reach linguistic expression.

 

 

“Amarcord”: an educational path on the exhortation of memory

 

Edited by Dina Grandi

 

Enhancing the objects of children which are linked to experiences and memories in relation to their own past is a starting point aiming to build a “sense of history” using teaching methods suited to childhood. The child chooses an object from his own world and narrates it, in a shared context and animated with the objects and stories of the other children, leading at the end to an exhibition.

 

 

The metaphor of tennis

That which we call tennis aged 4 or 5, what game is it?

 

Valentina Biino

 

The pedagogical value of the metaphor as a light-hearted method of learning to play tennis, places this sport in a different light from that in which it is conventionally connoted, without however belittling or deforming its original features. An appropriate method, suited to the age of the children, in a setting involving them in problem solving games and challenges.

 

 

Children in water: thoughts of teaching swimming

 

Stefano Servadei, Clio Murano

 

Understanding the physiology and techniques of swimming is important for those working professionally in this field, but when working with children it is equally important to have both psycho-pedagogic and teaching skills. The swimming pool is an extraneous learning environment from that in which children usually move, and special attention must be paid to methods of relating and communicating.