Learning objectives
Expected learning outcomes:
Knowledge and understanding: knowledge of the general features of the studied context, and being able to trace them in the texts;
Ability in applying knowledge and understanding: explaining passages from the texts, through basic historical interpretation and possibly connecting with one’s own previous knowledge;
Making judgments: it is the overarching goal of the course, with particular reference to the acquisition of an awareness of historical distance and of the longue durée of the investigated phenomena;
Communication skills: acquisition of a l not necessarily technical language, but being able to distinguish and give an account of the characteristics of an educational texts from the past;
Learning skills: being able to draw information from an historical texts and to interconnect to one’s own knowledge network, with the patterns promoted by individual talents.
Course unit content
Title of the course: Biographies and autobiographies as educational tool in the history of education
Bibliography
SOURCES
Students who are not Italian native speakers can choose modern translations of each book in their own language.
Senofonte, Ciropedia (370 a.C., circa)
Trad. it. di Francesco Regis (1833):
https://books.google.it/books?id=SDOPlkbHkIoC
Selection for the exam: introduction, Book I, Book II chap. 2, Book VII chap. 5, Book VIII chap. 1,2, 7.
Plutarco, Vite parallele (I-II sec. d.C):
one of choice between Licurgus and Numa / Demosthenes and Cicero
Antonio de Guevara, Vita, gesti, costumi, discorsi et lettere di Marco Aurelio Imperatore (1529)
Trad. italiana del 1556:
https://books.google.it/books?id=2gVmAAAAcAAJ
Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs (1771-1790)
Trad. it., Vita di Beniamino Franklin scritta da lui medesimo, 1830
https://books.google.it/books?id=n0kCSn2ri54C
To read: up to p. 178
Vittorio Alfieri, Vita scritta da esso (1790-1803)
Ed. Sonzogno, 1874
https://books.google.it/books?id=QrsT11Ll7QAC
Selection for the exam:
Introduzione di Eugenio Camerini (main concepts); Puerizia and Adolescenza, complete; Epoca terza, 1 to 5; Epoca quarta, 1 to 3, 24-25, 19 to 23, 30-31
A 20th- or 21th-century autobiography at the students' choice.
SAGGI
A book of choice between:
Parole che formano. Intrecci fra letteratura nazionale e storia dell'educazione, a cura di G. Iacoli, D. Varini, C. Varotti, Mucchi 2022 (quattro capitoli a scelta)
Filippo Sani, La solitudine dell'uomo di lettere e le sue storie, Morcelliana, 2023
Teaching methods
Selected passages from the texts will be read during the lessons, with comments aimed at highlighting the cultural context and the main decisions made by the authors. Through the comment and, when possible, the discussion with the students, critical skills and independence of judgment of the students will be trained.
Assessment methods and criteria
The final assessment will be conducted through an oral examination in which the student should express:
- The ability to set out clearly, with appropriate vocabulary, features, content and historical context of a pedagogical text.
- Knowledge of the historical background and the major pedagogical elements of the proposed texts, ascertained, if necessary, through questions posited by the teacher in the context of the presentation offered by the student.
- The threshold of pass mark is defined by the presence of both parameters:
a. full reading of the proposed texts and knowledge of their historical profile;
b. Personal reflections on the text.
