The Education Programme of the Historical Archives utilises the primary sources held at the HAEU to stimulate reflection on the history of the European project and on European identity, but also on the potential of young people, as informed citizens, in shaping a future Europe according to their values, hopes and desires. The HAEU started its educational programme in 2013 with an invitation to a class of elementary school children from the neighbouring and homonymous Scuola Primaria Jacopo Salviati to visit the Archives and Villa.
The programme evolved significantly over the years. It is included in Florence’s catalogue of civic education activities for all metropolitan schools, and welcomes more than 1,000 children and young adults annually from both Italy and abroad. A new archival collection at the HAEU, the ‘European Civic Education Programme’, preserves the materials from the education programme, including teaching resources, student artwork, and written and audiovisual reflections on themes addressed during the workshops.
The Education Programme offers tailored learning laboratories for teachers and students from the primary school level through university. The programme familiarises students and teachers with the role and activities of the Archives in preserving memory, whilst introducing them to important themes and challenges in the history of European integration and the activities of EU institutions. HAEU educators make use of the primary sources kept at the Archives to engage students in an interactive learning process that combines history lessons, primary document analysis and group discussion.
The laboratories are a place for interactive reflection, discussion and learning about European issues, and contribute to the Archives’ mission of promoting public interest in European integration and enhancing transparency in the functioning of EU institutions.
Photos of workshops of the Educational Programme of the HAEU.
These two visual sources are from an educational workshop the HAEU conducts each year at the scuola Altiero Spinelli on the Italian island of Ventotene. During the workshop, elementary school students handle a selection of facsimiles of archival documents, in particular visual sources that illustrate links between their local territory and the institutional context of the European Union. Educators explain and provide examples of how the EU institutions work together in de facto solidarity and how this concept can be reflected in everyday life. The photograph of the Malfatti Commission illustrates the European method of putting actors together ‘around a table’ to discuss policy decisions in a way that citizens’ voices are represented within the EU institutions. The metaphor of this collective approach is reinterpreted in the child’s artwork. The visual diptych between citizens and EU institutions opens up a way to narrate the meaning of being European today.
- Leslie Nancy Hernández Nova, Research Fellow, HAEU
Credits images: First weekly meeting of the Malfatti Commission, photograph by Jean-Louis Debaize, 2 July 1970. HAEU, FMM-79. Drawing by student, 'Let's talk around the table', Educational Programme, 2024. HAEU, ECEP-4.
This website requires Javascript to be Activated to work Correctly