PER UN’IDEA DI DIDATTICA. I MODELLI DELLE GUIDE PER MAESTRI (1955-2011)

What idea of didactics is conveyed to schools by teacher's guides? What features should the ideal teacher's guide have? These are the fundamental questions driving this whole work; born from the need to ponder, once again, on the world of didactics itself, in relation with Educational Science. Said connection will be looked for, and judged, in the factual dimension of the Italian school, through the analysis of teacher's guides for primary school, published starting from 1939, focusing on the period between 1955 and 2011. The “teacher's guide” tool was chosen due to it being a daily witness of the changes which the teaching-learning strategies have undergone during the various historical and cultural cycles of the Italian school. Such tool is considered in a twofold way: as a reflection of both the historical changes of didactics in the school and the evolution or involution by which it is concerned; and of the idea of didactics actually reaching the schools, idea emerging from said devices. The work starts off with the definition of paradigm and model, it then focuses on the concept of didactics, from a scientific and etymological standpoint, referencing the main classical and contemporary authors; it examines the connection between school and didactics, dwelling on the concept of “educational relationship”, and it offers a consideration on disciplinary didactics. The “teacher's guide” tool is then defined and analyzed, contextualizing the various volumes from an historical and political point of view and specifying the purpose it should fulfil as a means actually useful to teachers, worthy of having a place in the educative context.