The Didactics of “Being With”

Abstract

This paper focuses, on the one hand, on the relationship between schools and students’ families and, on the other, on the relationship between schools/teachers and students. However, all these subjects need to be seen as subjects interacting in a continuum and not as dichotomies. The aim is to relate the experience and practice of pioneering and innovative approaches to education and learning in Italian high schools. Students become a participative actor of their curricula chosen by their teachers. The paper also shows the construction of learning communities and learning networks as spaces where to connect schools, families, and students. Besides offering a different approach to involve the different actors in the learning process, this article also suggests a new figure ‘the liquid teacher’ and a new space where teachers and students can work and learn together.