Doing Civics with stories and images

Abstract

The Italian Constitution is the foundation of the teaching of Citizenship Education in schools. Books and the practice of reading support the interdisciplinary of this teaching, because the guiding words of the Constitution can be found in the books for children and Young Adults, even those not expressly mentioned. The far-sightedness of constituent fathers and mothers has ensured that the Constitution written in ‘48 is alive and requires nothing more to be practiced by a community of interpreters, which is us. To be interpreters, however, we need discernment and imagination: skills that only the habit of reading can offer. A path to show how the presence of a school library and space and time for reading in school makes training of responsible and active citizens effective.