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,
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