eTwinning Visibility Newsletter no. 2 eTwinning Visibility Newsletter no. 2 | Page 37

Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2012 Newsletter -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------we are afraid of seeing a reflection in a mirror of what we are not, but we want to be. Yet the silence of one year, which seems, at first sight, very long and painful, hides virtues of "therapeutic". Forgive, friends eTwinners, a reminder of the classical Latin, but it is our European culture! Isidore of Seville (Etimologiae, XIII, 12) writes about the silence: Sicut silentium non aliqua res est, sed ubi sonus non est, silentium dicitur; sic tenebrae non aliquid sunt, sed ubi lux non est, tenebrae dicuntur. "As the silence is not something that exists in itself, but you name silence when you do not give any sound, so darkness is in nothing in itself, but when you speak of darkness, there is not light". And staying on topic, for the Latin verb sileo does not have the same semantic value of the verb taceo. Plautus (Poenulus, Prologus v. 3) says to the audience, with the enthusiasm of those who want to be heard at all costs: silete et tacete atque advortite animum. "Be careful, be quiet, especially give ear." All these are different actions. The presence of silence in no way implies that there is someone who speaks in a corner of his mind or thinking goes. Tacere, is, by the Latins, the absence of words like negative act; Silere is silence as a positive and creative act. most distressing, to find yourself alone without relief. It is not only a condition of our day, it is a condition experienced and widely studied. Teaching is not exempt from the drop in motivation, such as programs and projects. The school subjects must be reconsidered from the experience of students and their practical application for learning. Let me write also another reference to the Latin writers. The things they have written are really modern, sometimes in a shocking way, as these considerations of Pliny the Younger are: Erat autem antiquitus institutum, ut a maioribus natu non auribus modo, verum etiam oculis disceremus... omnem denique senatorium morem, quod fidissimum praecipiendi genus, exempliis docebantur. (Epistularum libri, VIII, 14), "Since antiquity reigned in fact the norm that we could learn from the elderly, not only with the ears but the eyes ..., well across the senatorial practice, everything was taught by example, that is the surest way to convey the rules". And yet this same author’s thought that adapts well to teachers who have to deal with adolescents in school: Existimo severitatem comitatemque miscere, ne illa in tristitiam, haec in petulantiam excedat. (Epistularum libri, VIII,21). "I think the most reasonable and right rule is to mix seriousness with cheerfulness, so the first is not going to end up in a sullen scowl and the second is not going to end in an irresponsible lightness." This is not to change the way we think about silence, but silence that pushes us to change our way of thinking, allows us to question our certainties, to reflect on the words spoken and to restrain those that follow each other in an uncontrolled manner sometimes. To be the bearer of innovations in any field of human activities as they relate also means to take responsibility for achieving the opposite effect to the goals you focused on, to see frustrated the efforts made and, 37