The Heart of the Citizenship Education and the Revival of New Schools in Europe

Our present time is characterised by many contradictions and the image of uncertainty gives the sense of our deep loss of values. Education is the traditional space in which generations create meanings and the adults prefigure the future. Despite the idea of liquid modernity which dominates our existence, we are convinced that we inherit from the pedagogic culture of the last two centuries meaningful testimonies of schools born in the spirit of the Reform. Schools as Dalton, Jena Plan, Decroly, Freinet are still alive and they are bringing us a new message of citizenship education coherent with the impulse of their founders. Following our field study to investigate the reality of the Schools of Method in the areas of the Flanders and Bruxelles, we could be redrawing a solid concept of community. In the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we assume that modern western culture reaches his task to convert the dispute into tolerance. Citizenship education yearns to overcome the separations and indicates the road for peace and harmony. It is not casual that the Reform Schools are now reaffirming the original impulse. They are transforming the contradictions of our postmodern society in the management of daily education. Headmasters and teachers are seriously opting for movement and variety of the curriculum against school stereotypes of the disciplines. Children become protagonists of the reformation using the methodology of dialogue, development and discovery. Teachers and parents appear to be fundamental parts of the process and learning democracy in school start with the practice of council of pupils: discussing, deciding, doing. The external world enters in school in an active way to form to life. The history is composed by the biographies of senior citizens, mainly grandfathers, as well as the languages are a matter of proud for children of the family with a migrant background