My Teaching Purpose

"I want my children to understand the world".  This amazing sentence is part of a speech by the great American psychologist Howard Gardner and I it can epitomize what teaching means to me. In fact, I should quote the whole speech, because its author succeeds in beautifully expressing an entirely embraceable idea of education. There are several reasons why, according to Gardner, we should pursue that aim: first, "the world is fascinating"; second, the "human mind is curious" and, finally, by understanding the world, our children would contribute to "make it a better place". Well, I realize it may sound a bit too ambitious and I may appear pretentious, but, this is definitely my idea of teaching , and of teaching English to Italian speaking kids, too. I teach because I'm excited about the possibility of providing my pupils with a powerful instrument to understand the world, and, notably, contemporary world, with all its extraordinary complexity.  I teach because it opens both to my students and me windows on the world, because it gives me chances to exchange views and to let kids discover their unique resources and potentialities.