“Was the most beautiful experience of my life!”- this is one of the comments from the participants of the Twinning “Selinunte – Carthage” between the High School of Human Sciences “G. Gentile “- linguistic address of Castelvetrano and the High School Imam Moslem – El Menzah of Tunisi.
The initiative, carried out under the activities of the Mediterranean School Network Edu.Net, promoted by the Cultural Route of the Council of Europe “The Phoenicians’ Route”, to which adhere to the two schools, led to the creation of a trip to Sicily by young Tunisian students (April 2017) and then a trip to Tunisia (May 2017), by Sicilian students, guests of their respective families.
In addition to linguistic exchanges – the High School of Castelvetrano is one of the two Sicilian schools in which Arabic is studied, while in the high school of Tunis the Italian is studied – there has been a fruitful comparison of the pedagogical approaches applied to the issues of heritage enhancement and heritage pedagogy, topics that have aroused the interest of the MIUR – Ministry of Education, University and Research in Italy and of the Ministry of Education in Tunisia, which will see further effects in the next school year.
Since 2005, the Phoenicians’ Route promotes the “Intercultural Travels” for schools in different countries that have the opportunity to meet and to know each other thanks to this initiative. Visits and educational activities, hospitality at home, knowledge of local productions, are actions that, followed by respective teachers, students have the opportunity to put into practice. Cultural exchanges are an important educational resource in an era in which the walls are still privileged to dialogue.
