Educare all'inclusione a scuola: un'impresa collaborativa

If schools want to pursue the development of soft skills, citizenship skills, and life skills, they need to avoid working in isolation; they rather need to integrate in an education ecosystem comprising more actors and territories. This article argues in favor of this point by presenting a National Project called «Take my hand» (Prendimi per mano) carried out by the ONG CBM Italia in collaboration with many partners. The project is remarkable for its goal (inclusion education) and its scale (18 months, 5 Italian Regions, 90 classes, almost 2.000 students and 180 teachers). The author took part in the Unesco Chair research group in charge of monitoring and evaluating the Project since the very early, embryonic phases. The educational collaboration between a school and other actors needs to be supported by larger and structured projects, by teachers’ personal engagement and openness, and by the involvement in evaluation and advancement. Any one actor and any one school is in itself a small or large ecosystem in which collaboration is, once again, the privileged work style if education has to transmit some values of inclusion and humanity.