L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano hand, if we look at him as the educator who inspired thou- sand of Italians to learn how to read and write thanks to his respect, his patience and passion, his TV lessons will not only become an example o f a d v a n c e d m u l t i m e d i a techniques, but also guidan- c e a n d r e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f those humanistic values that, today more ever, have beco- me essential. All the 484 epi- sodes of Non è Mai Troppo Tardi are inspired by the fundamental principles of t h a t M o v i m e n t o d i C o o p e r a z i o n e E d u c a - t i v a ( M o v e m e n t o f Educational Cooperation) Alberto Manzi embraced: respect for the individual, social solidarity, the impor- tance of asking questions, the development of critical thought and responsibility. These are all essential tenets for the cultural and intellec- tual formation of modern active citizenry. Athough, in his TV les- sons, Manzi intuited a series of principles that were to become pivotal for today's o n l i n e t e a c h i n g , s u c h a s using images, videos and drawings, or personalizing lessons and dividing them in sections, the fundamental value of his work is not in his technical abilities (or, cer- tainly, not only in this), but rather in a clear and visible l e a r n i n g p a t h b a s e d o n e m p a t h y , r e s p e c t f o r t h e individual and a continuous search for meanings that transcended the curriculum and the alphabet. Let us go back to the 14th of January 1966: on that day, Maestro Manzi's show was on. From the screen, Manzi greets his audience, chats with them a b o u t a n y t h i n g a n d everything and creates the best condition to support learning: trust. Even if the lessons are created for adult illiterates, a large number of pre-school children learn h o w t o r e a d a n d w r i t e thanks to his TV classes, as the thousand of letters they send him declare. "We are here to learn and know bet- ter the world and ourselves. This is what, in the end, rea- ding and writing is useful f o r . " T h a t ' s h o w M a n z i w o u l d s t a r t e a c h l e s s o n , making clear how reading and writing are just instru- ments. Through questions and challenges, il Maestro stimulates his public's inte- rest and its curiosity, with the aim of keeping what he c a l l s " c o g n i t i v e t e n s i o n " always working. After wri- ting on his large white note- book (the TV equivalent of the iconic blackboard) words that his students still cannot r e a d ( p i n o , m a r e , n a v e , casa), il Maestro looks strai- g h t i n t o t h e c a m e r a , i n t o people's homes, and says: "What did I just write?" It s e e m s a l m o s t a p o l o g e t i c when he admits he knows his friends at home cannot read those words. "That's why — he says reassuringly — we are here together. To overco- me this problem." With only a few, precise black charcoal strokes on w h i t e p a p e r , M a n z i t h e n brings to life a marine land- scape, evoking images his audience knows well: a pine with the sea on the back- ground, a ship sailing on it and, finally, a house on the shores . "Here you could read them (the words). Why?" And so, he explains simply and clearly that images are symbols and that's why peo- ple at home can understand them. Other signs, Manzi continues, like the graphe- mes that create the words pino, mare, nave and casa are symbols, too, that allow us to communicate and to r e a d w h a t o t h e r p e o p l e wrote. When he introduces his viewers to the concepts of signifier and signified, our TV teacher brings language learning to a higher cognitive level. When he brings their attention to the role of rea- d i n g a s a n i n s t r u m e n t t o understand reality, he tells them they are part of Non è Mai Troppo Tardi's didactic p r o c e s s , n o t s i m p l e r e c i - pients of it. The following 30 minutes, on that Thursday, 14th of January 1960, and the lessons on the following days, were to be filled with ideas, activities, guests, day- to-day inspirations so that his public would not forget how reading and writing are a fundamental part of their lives, but also that they have to work hard at it. Alberto Manzi's TV les- sons were more than a mere attempt to alphabetize 1960s Italy. They were meetings livened by questions, by pau- ses to be filled and things to b e g u e s s e d , b y p o e m s t o reflect upon and values to learn and make one's own. By rising the cultural expec- tations of his viewers and in proposing a path steeped in empathy and shared values, Alberto Manzi stated that neither writing nor reading could exist apart from the c e n t r a l i t y o f t h e H u m a n Being; he said that literacy and culture could be built only around the idea of com- m u n i t y , b y l o o k i n g m o r e carefully into ourselves and at others. This is the lesson we truly need when thinking about the type of distance learning Covid-19 has been forcing us to experience. We need to set ourselves finally apart from a type of learning that focuses on the means but not on the aims. By sit- ting in front of a computer or a TV we don't learn anything and it isn't by simply pushing c o n t e n t t h r o u g h a s c r e e n that we teach something. We must keep on asking oursel- ves about the values guiding us, about where they will lead us and about how (and whether) the pedagogical p r o c e s s e s , m e a n s a n d methods we choose are — or a r e n o t — c o h e r e n t w i t h t h e m . L e t u s t a k e , t h e n , Alberto Manzi as an exam- ple, but let us embrace his m e s s a g e f u l l y , e s p e c i a l l y when he talks of honesty, participation, responsibility and respect. LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE Continued from page 22 Alberto Manzi is remembered as the man who taught a large number of Italians to read and write through television (Photo: Wikipedia)

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