Teachers, mothers and fathers of the César Manrique Primary School of Tahiche met on Wednesday afternoon with representatives of various social and cultural groups of the town of the municipality of Teguise to form a commission and begin to develop work with schoolchildren on the values of citizenship.
The school community has become interested in this innovative work system that follows the guidelines of the Atlántida Project, which is promoted by the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands and whose philosophy has a prominent presence in the new state law on Education.
The coordinator of the Atlántida Project, Florencio Luengo, attended the meeting flanked by representatives of the City Council, the César Manrique Foundation, the School of Tourism and the Neighborhood Association of Tahiche. The aim of this initiative is to involve the entire town in the education of its future generations, requiring everyone to collaborate and contribute.
The protagonist of the initiative will be César Manrique, as an exemplary citizen. This aim is to be achieved with an increase in the school activity of the educational center, related to the promotion of the values of coexistence, knowledge and respect for the nature of Lanzarote and the work of the greatest of the conejeros artists, as well as a special creative development.
The existence of several educational innovation projects in this center and their interconnection is seen as an important support for the new project. As has happened in other areas where Atlántida has been developed, the promotion of active citizenship can lead to proposals for improvement in the environment that then become reality.
Atlántida Project
Civic values among the new generations are in crisis. The youngest members of families, cultivated in the culture of consumerism, suffer from a significant deficit in terms of the new values of citizenship of the 21st century. And the fact is that Pokemon and the Play Station do not help in the education of the future of society.
This is the opinion of education professionals throughout the country, who, together with parents, are becoming increasingly aware of the need to educate children more and better. And with this objective, the campaign launched by the Federation of Associations of Parents of Students of Lanzarote and the Atlántida Project, in collaboration with various municipalities of the Island under the title "Citizenship, much more than a subject", is born.
The objective of the campaign is to reach the soul of the centers, so that democratic values can be integrated into the joint task of the School - Family - Municipality, as co-responsible axes of change. The proposal that is put forward is not only theoretical, but there are already several Community Citizenship Committees created in towns, neighborhoods and regions.
The Atlántida project is the name of a plural collective of professionals from different stages and working groups and centers: teachers of infant, primary, secondary and adult education, university teachers; complete educational centers fully integrated in the Project or that collaborate punctually in some task.
The aforementioned collective, intends to reflect on the current problems of public schools, and propose improvements taking into account the social, emotional and economic situation of both parents and teachers and students, with the intention of developing those values that favor the democratic organization and functioning of the school.