Cultural exchanges at the Curcio in Ispica with students from a German gymnasium

Cultural exchanges continue at the “Gaetano Curcio” high school in Ispica, which recently welcomed two German teachers, Sylvia Rolirat and Sandra Oakes, along with six students from the Phoenix Gymnasium in Wolfsburg-Vorsfelde.

The delegation arrived in Sicily as part of the European PNRR project for English teachers titled “From the printed newspaper to fake news”. In addition to “Curcio” and Phoenix Gymnasium, the program also includes the Apeitio Gymnasium Agros in Cyprus and the Escola Joan Pelegri in Barcelona. The initiative has been coordinated by professors Vera Grande, Genny Cannata, and Mary Puccia.

The focus of the program has been the world of fake news, with particular attention to fact-checking tools and critical source analysis.

The Ispica high school involved the guests in workshops dedicated to telling the history of Italy and Sicily also through the evolution of journalism. Students from “Curcio” also moderated an English-language meeting in the auditorium with journalist Giuseppina Franzò to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Italian journalism, from print media to television, from radio to online publications, analyzing the phenomenon of disinformation from all angles: origins, psycho-sociological dynamics of dissemination, repercussions, and, above all, the best practices to unmask it and protect oneself.

Notable were also the fact-checking workshops on well-known hoaxes that circulated in Italy, which had significant impacts on the tourism and cultural heritage of the country.

The comparison between the challenges of German and Italian journalism resulted in a concrete dialogue between cultures and democracies, aimed at consolidating a shared European sentiment. The exchange was enriched by guided tours to Modica, Catania, on Etna, to Noto, and to Siracusa. The excursions allowed German teachers and students to discover the historical and natural riches of Sicily and provided Ispica students with a true full immersion in the German and English languages.

“Exchanges like these – explains the principal of Curcio Maurizio Franzò – have always been the strength of the language curriculum and other high school and vocational programs because we strongly believe in their educational value for the citizens of tomorrow, both in the short term and especially in the long term.”