DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL AND CIVIC COMPETENCE IN THE CLASSROOM THROUGH ART

Catalina Guerrero Romera¹⁺ --- Maria Angeles Hernnndez Prados²---Patricia Lopez Vicent³---Ana Carmen Tolino Fernandez-Henarejos⁴

^1,2,3,4University of Murcia, Spain.

Keywords:Key competences, Citizen education, Values, Art, Heritage, Primary education, Social and citizenship competence.

ARTICLE HISTORY: Received:16 October 2020, Revised:9 November 2020, Accepted:27 November 2020, Published:14 December 2020

1. INTRODUCTION: DEVELOPMENT OF BASIC COMPETENCIES IN EDUCATION, ART AND VALUES

We live in a time when political and productive structures are undergoing constant changes that condition culture and lifestyles. These changes demand responses from education that will help prepare the individual within this new society.

The approval of the Spanish Organic Act 8/2013 of December 9 for the improvement of quality in education (Ley Orgánica 8/2013, de 9 de diciembre, para la mejora de la calidad educativa, LOMCE) has led to a new organization of Primary Education in which the design of the basic curriculum (aims, competencies, contents, assessment criteria, standards and assessable learning results) corresponds, according to Spanish Royal Decree 126/2014 of February 28, to the Regional Government Department of Education (Real Decreto 126/2014, de 28 de febrero, por el que se establece el currículo básico de la Educación Primaria). This new education policy promotes a new conception of the education system which is understood as an educational whole made up of interrelated stages in which the students play an active part in the learning process.

The school plays an essential role in developing the competencies the students need to acquire in order to interact in their social, cultural and work environments. Competencies can be defined as a state or quality of being suitable or well qualified or of possessing a requirement, knowledge or skills in a particular field. In education, these consequences are frequently classified in the results of the learning that involves this knowledge and the skills and attitudes (Kumagai & Lypson, 2009). Broadly speaking, by competence we understand:

The selection, mobilization and synchronized management of knowledge, qualities, capacities and attitudes which, in an interrelated way, allow the individual an intervention which is reflexive, creative, effective and adapted to the various complex and novel situations that one will meet in one’s personal, social or working life (González et al., 2011).

However, according to Ferreyra et al. (2008) competencies are not in themselves knowledge, abilities, skills or attitudes, although they do activate, constitute and guide those resources. Education today is no longer the education of the “finished product”, where the product is knowledge; it is not the school that satisfied what society demanded of it by teaching such knowledge. Today the education required is one that trains people in socially valid contents by developing the competencies and capacities. The development of competencies means putting into practice a set of capacities, skills and affective forms that activate thinking. The competencies have an integrated, holistic character which is contextualized, transferable/applicative, reflexive and creative, dynamic and multifunctional (González et al., 2011).

According to Sarramona (2014) in the matter of competencies one should follow the principle of back to the basics, since everything that is initial education is of special relevance and, within this, it is important to acquire the knowledge and action strategies which are fundamental for continued learning. Hence, theoretical knowledge must be accompanied by personal skills and experience that teach problem solving in daily and professional life, which includes common sense, intuition, the capacity to innovate, thinking outside the box, but also a sense of personal commitment towards the problem to be solved; in short, a positive attitude. Competencies appear as being linked to general faculties, to the human potential to understand and transform reality (Sarramona, 2000).

Educational defenders of the competencies have conceived a way bringing professional and general education together and putting an end to the lack of understanding among most educators about how to apply knowledge. The core of this approach is the defense of the conception of competence as an element that unites knowing and doing into a single whole. Opponents have, however, based their attacks on reductionism and behaviorism, on their emphasis on disaggregated skills and a lack of recognition of the complexity of learning and the importance of knowledge in the acquisition of abilities (Gonczi, 2000). Perrenoud states that this is one of the most common criticisms of the curriculum orientation in terms of the development of competencies, i.e., the accusation that it turns its back on knowledge and, therefore, on culture (2012). The same author goes on to say that “reducing culture to knowledge is anthropologically an unsustainable. The human being is before anything else action, his thought and culture are generally set in a pragmatic relation to the world. Competencies are part of culture” (2012, p.73).  Within this framework, the teacher has to assume a new role that is closer to that of a guide of the students’ learning, which leads to the teacher planning a competencies-based education.

Focusing the curriculum on the acquisition of competencies “requires teachers to make a great effort to change teaching routines and classroom practices” (Méndez, Sierra, & Mañana, 2013) since cognitive skills, while indispensable, are not enough in themselves. From an early age it is necessary to acquire transversal competencies like critical thinking, managing diversity, creativity or capacity to communicate, as well as key attitudes like individual confidence, enthusiasm, perseverance and openness to change. It is likewise evident that today’s world requires “competent and committed actors with the will to understand that is necessary to construct a fairer society together” (Moya & Luengo, 2011).  Addressing basic competencies through art, and educating in values ca be very valuable in forming citizenship and in achieving the model of society we aspire to.

Among the aims sought by the LOMCE, cultural and citizenship preparation and artistic education are considered basic elements for meeting the learning aims set out. The UNESCO at its World Conference on Arts Education in Lisbon in 2006 stated that culture and the arts are basic components of integral education which allow the individual to develop fully. It was likewise held that arts education was a universal right of all students and particularly those who might be educationally excluded (immigrants, cultural minorities, the impaired) (Council of Europe, 2005; UNESCO, 2006).

Our proposal is to work with the various competencies by reading Ítalo Calvino, since this can give the students capacities like understanding the importance of other cultures, saying no to racism, respect for others, the importance of looking after art, and so teach them to take their own decisions based on arguments and critical reflection.  All this seeks to transmit the importance of expressing one’s own ideas and listening to those of others through dialog, in which fundamental ideas can be consolidated and agreements reached, which are the competencies envisaged under the Act. It should also suppose a critical understanding and appreciation of the wide range of cultural and artistic manifestations (literary texts, pictorial works, musical works and other cultural and artistic manifestations such as plays and films) while fostering the development of other competencies (critical capacity, creative expression, etc.) and values, especially in terms of the development improvement and conservation of cultural and artistic heritage (UNESCO, 2014). These competencies favor understanding of the historical and social reality of the world and the plurality of cultures as well as fostering a common feeling of belonging to our society (Spanish Organic Education Act 2/2006, Ley Orgánica 2/2006, de mayo, de Educación).

There is an ethical dimension involved in all this that serves to create in our students their own system of values that will lead to a behavior that is coherent when taking decisions or when faced with a conflict. This competence is the exercising of active, integrating citizenship and understanding the values that underlie states and democratic societies, their fundaments, their organization and their functioning. It also reinforces people’s preparation to be able to act as participative and involved citizens to improve the cohesion, defense and development of democratic society through art (OEI, 2011).

There are five important axes that interact within this program: culture, literature, painting, values and art. The possibilities these varied fields of work affords are endless and depend, in part, on creativity and the needs posed in attaining objectives that allow us to put into effect a teacher-learner through competencies approach (Guerrero, 2015) and curriculum development of more critical and active thinking (López-Facal, Miralles, Prats, & Gómez, 2017). Broadly speaking, it is a case of exploring the possible contribution of arts to satisfy the needs for creativity and cultural awareness in today’s world, and of how we focus on the strategies required for incorporating or fostering art education in the learning environment (UNESCO, 2006).  This, perforce, requires the incorporation of this type of teaching in centers of education and in curricular or extracurricular possibilities, and the fostering of methodologies that are related to education through the arts and artistic and cultural education and mediation.

The CIVABLES program thus intends students to acquire the seven basic competencies envisaged under the LOMCE as being indispensable (language, mathematics, science and technology, digital, learning to learn, a sense of initiative and a civic, social and cultural spirit of entrepreneurship). We have followed the general guidelines laid down by Escamilla (2009) for focusing the competencies in the classroom program: interrelation and interdependence of the curricular elements, the effort to go beyond a purely instrumental focus of reference and seek to identify, choose and organize school learning experiences of high value and projection in life, the need to encourage and apply teamwork and the recognition of the application of competencies in skills as training to address new tasks.

2. THE CIVABLES PROGRAM

The CIVABLES program is part of the Program III collaboration in “Cooperation in Educational Innovation Projects between university departments and non-university centers of education” (Cooperación en proyectos de innovación educativa entre Departamentos universitarios y Centros de Educación no universitaria) promoted and funded by the University of Murcia and the Regional Ministry for Education in the Autonomous Community of Murcia, in an effort to consolidate an educational model that fosters the artistic and cultural development of children and of culture in our Region. We worked with the teaching staff at the state school Monteazahar in Beniaján, which has shown a high awareness in this issue. Indeed, since 1987 the school boasts a permanent exhibition of artists from the Region of Murcia, and so contributes to disseminating the work of a number of artists from or closely linked to our area. In May 2011 the school visited the Pedro Cano Trust in Blanca, where the students had the chance to become acquainted with the series of pictures that comprise “The Invisible Cities”. The interest of the teachers, students and even the author himself were essential in designing the program we describe below.

2.1. Aims of the Program

The aim of the project was to make a series of teaching proposals of an original, innovative focus based on the book by Ítalo Calvino and the paintings of Pedro Cano, not only as a way of getting to know the artist, but also to develop the basic competencies associated with creativity, values and attitudes that globalize teaching. The general and specific aims are:

1. To facilitate perfecting, competence updating and technical training linked to areas of the curriculum so enhancing the links between education and the world of art and culture while building bridges between disciplines that favor the learning of competencies and values.
2. To get to know, to value and to develop a critical attitude toward cultural and artistic manifestations, while fostering initiative, imagination, creativity, teamwork, the assumption of responsibilities and seeking out attitudes of respect, acceptance and understanding.
3. To design learning and assessment activities of the basic curriculum competencies through an interdisciplinary approach.
4. To design the evaluation of the impact of the activity through various assessment tools and techniques from the students’ perspective and to gauge their perception of how their learning has improved and of the teachers.
5. To design, prepare and select a series of resources that enable students and teachers to develop their artistic, cultural and socio-emotional linguistic competencies.

In short, it is an attempt to contribute to the creation of resources and activities for teachers, students and families based on the development of various competencies that will give rise to a series of educational proposals and will foster perfection, competence updating and the technical training of the teachers and the methodologies they employ.

2.2. Integrated Tasks Units (ITUs)

As teachers we strove to ensure that the activities in “The invisible cities and values” create a suitable atmosphere for the students’ personal growth which gives them the opportunity to express and share their opinions, which should be accepted as they stand and with belief in their possibilities. Within this atmosphere we will help them to grow as people, explaining to them the positive and negative consequences of their acts. There will be a flexible, democratic organization of the classroom with an emphasis on group activities over individual ones, which should create an atmosphere of safety in which students feel comfortable with their classmates and teachers alike. There will be strategies to improve active listening, empathy, respect and tolerance. Priority is given to the use of new technologies when searching for information, carrying out tasks and presenting these. The tasks are also based on socially accepted values within a welcoming, stimulating and educational atmosphere of togetherness.

All the above leads us to address the issue of how to include in each area or subject the curriculum the learning and activities that favor the development of the basic competencies and to what extent these provide learning experiences in the same, i.e., we are looking to apply the contents in an integrated way. The acquisition of these competencies supposes, as the LOMCE clearly indicates, the design of integrated learning activities. If we bear in mind that the teachers will evaluate the teaching processes and their own practice in terms of achievement of the educational goals for that stage and in those areas, along with the development of the basic competencies, then we must pay attention to the development of the programming and, in particular, of the teaching-learning strategies and the procedures for assessing the students. The teaching and evaluation must, therefore, include checking that attitudes and values are being developed in all students in relation to the basic competencies and how these are taken into consideration in the programs (Sierra, Méndez, & Mañana, 2013).

An educational proposal was therefore drawn up based on designing generic activities that can be undertaken in different areas, in our case those related fundamentally to the subjects and contents of primary education. They are designed to give the students the opportunity to experiment and reflect on the activities and the core concepts in the areas in question and, in particular, to develop the different competencies. We refer to them as Integrated Task Units (ITUs), since they aim to relate and design integrated learning activities as envisaged under the LOMCE that “enable the students to advance towards learning one or more competencies at the same time”.

They include the description, aim and the distinguishing aspects of the competencies and values selected. The earlier theoretical foundation addresses how the current curriculum is structured on subjects, and how these are used to search for the references to develop and acquire the competencies at this stage. Thus, each subject includes explicit references as to its contribution to the basic competencies to which it is mainly oriented. Elsewhere, both the objectives and the selection itself of the contents seek to ensure the development of all the competencies. The assessment criteria serve to rate the progressive degree of acquisition. The aim is to get a proposal of instruments and tools that can modify the model or the approach to meet the development of the basic competencies.

Lastly, as the law encourages and with a greater emphasis on practice than theory, we have sought to move away from traditional cognitive aspects and focus on our students’ enjoying their learning and on their applying it in real everyday situations, making it a meaningful and ongoing experience. The model proposed specifies the generic data in the Units which refer to the Name of the City, Levels or Stages, Terms, Session number, Competencies and Values, Resources, Materials, Duration, Development of the activity, Evaluation criteria and Comments and Proposals for Improvements.

2.2.1. Contents

The Invisible Cities are short, unrelated stories whose common nexus is the dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, the Emperor of the Tartars. The author, Ítalo Calvino describes 50 cities and divides them into 11 topics. Within this project it was unfeasible to program and develop activities for all 50 cities, neither is it recommendable didactically for meaningful learning. We therefore chose one from each group of topics (remember that each topic takes in 5 cities) to include in the program. The units chosen (see Table 1) deal with the following curriculum contents blocks.

• The identity and dignity of the person: self-esteem will be reinforced through individual activities or in groups. In the debates each student will be encouraged to his or her own opinions and to respect those of the other participants. Self-initiative and recognition and respect for the in initiatives of others will also be fostered.
• Understanding and respect in interpersonal relations. As mentioned above, debate will be a very present component of the activities of each city as will respect for the basic rules that govern debating. Likewise, theatre, group work and working with the family, presentations, etc., will contribute to improving relations and to fostering empathy and tolerance.
• Coexistence and social values. Working in groups means accepting a democratic management of rules and cooperation, mutual trust and peer assistance. These skills, which are rooted in social values and in democracy, will help students to solve conflicts properly, without resorting to violence.

Pedro Cano illustrated the 50 cities in the book by Ítalo Calvino, and so our fundamental criterion in choosing which cities to work with in the project was to weigh up the text and the illustration together and choose the most plastic of these and the those that offered greater educational potential in Primary Education. In this way, we a re working not only with artistic competence associated to language competence, but also with visual competence, thanks to the illustrations. We could therefore identify a fourth thematic block of artistic contents associated with creativity, range of colors, interpretation, etc.

2.2.2. Activities

Below are the general criteria employed in the design of the activities that make up Civables:

1. Activities should incorporate contents from the various subjects that make up the structure of the Primary Education Curriculum, but especially, as far as possible they should include plastic activities and activities related to: music, painting, drawing, sculpture, poetry, etc.
2. They should foster active learning methodologies through cooperative, constructive, experiential activities (like moving around, going out in a group, having fun, walking, creating things, meditation, relaxation, exploring the body, etc.) which encourage reflection about learning.
3. They should favor the use of cognitive capacities (relation, discrimination, association, etc.) as well as communication capacities (debates, pooling, negotiation and decision making).
4. They should take in socio-affective or emotional spheres, not only in their identification but also in their expression through various channels (linguistic, corporeal and artistic).
5. They should foster the learning of values like self-confidence, effort, dialogue, understanding, acceptance of one’s own and others’ qualities, reflection not just on problem solving but on preventing and solving conflicts, etc., since these, together with the development of basic competencies, constitute the backbone of our project.
6. They should encourage the involvement of the whole educational community, especially the families, in the child’s learning. To this end, one group of activities requires the children to seek their parents’ help and the latter therefore become active participants in the teaching-learning process.

A constant feature of this program has been the adaptation of the activities designed to the students’ level of maturity in an effort to foster motivation and interest for these types of syllabus content.  In all, 66 activities have been designed.

2.2.3. Scheduling

The Invisible Cities can be adapted to any level depending on the aims addressed and the degree of difficulty of the activities we develop. In our case we have opted for the fourth to sixth years of Primary Education as it is the intermediate stage between Infant-Primary and Secondary Education.

Three years were also considered appropriate for the steady development of a project of this magnitude, while fulfilling its main aim – the fostering and development of basic competencies. An introductory unit has been scheduled for the first year, which will serve as a way of presenting the project to the pupils and to encourage them to put it into practice. The unit will be worked on from the first term of the school year. Since we are talking here of the first year, and therefore younger pupils, it was decided to work with just two cities, one in the second term and the other in the third. The order of the cities follows that of the book.

Units	Year	Term	Categories1	Activities
1. Introduction	4	First	-Friendship -Self-fulfillment -Citizenship -Social-communitary	-Learning about the history of the Invisible Cities. -Understanding the reading. -Making a mural with each character. -Making a collage. -Preparing a map.
2. The cities and memory: Isadora	4	Second	-Self-fulfillment -Transcendental	-First impressions. -Understanding Isadora. -The search for Isadora’s spiral. -Isadora’s emotional ambivalence. -The spiral as a symbol. -The most surprising contraption. -Making musical instruments. Cock fights destroying perfection. The city of my dreams or of my memories. Problems of the city of Isadora.
3. The cities and desire: Fedora	4	Third	-Self-fulfillment -Transcendental -Citizenship	-First impressions. -Understanding Fedora. - Fedora’s wishes. -Making a wishing classroom:  Fedora. -The work of Pedro Cano. Fedora. -Wishes and frustration through music. -Fedora’s crystal globe. -A museum for the school. -The map of your empire. -Problems with Fedora’s city.
4. The cities and signs: Tamara	5	First	-Coexistence   -Citizenship -Self-fulfillment -Social-communitary	-Tamara´s secrets. -Getting to know Tamara. -Tamara, by Pedro Cano. -My Symbol. -Tamaran problems.
5. The thin cities: Sophronia	5	First	-Social-communitary -Trascendental -Social	-¿How do we imagine Sophronia?. -Understanding Sophronia. -Let’s be journalists! -Sophronian geography. -Mathematics in Sophronia.
6. The cities and trading: Eutropia	5	Second	-Social-communitary -Friendship	-First impressions. -Eutropia, Marco Polo’s great discovery. -Analyzing the chart. -English with Eutropia. -Fun mathematics with Eutropia.
7. The cities and eyes: Phyllis	5	Second	-Social-communitary -Citizenship -Friendship	-First impressions. -Hidden words of Phyllis. -The painting of Phyllis. -Creative researchers. -English with Phyllis.
8. The cities and names: Leandra	5	Third	-Coexistence -Citizenship -Social-communitary	-Delving into Leandra. How do we imagine Leandra? -Art and Leandra. -Hidden words of Leandra. -The geography of Leandra.
9. The cities and the dead: Adelma	6	First	-Transcendental -Social-communitary	-The city of fish. -Games: Truth and the hedgehog. -Staircases in a row.
10. The cities and the sky: Tecla	6	First	-Self-fulfillment -Transcendental	-Mr Incredible hunts down thieves. -Tecla is possible. -Who’s that hero?
11. The continuous cities: Cecilia	6	Second	-Citizenship -Social-communitary -Trascendental	-Throw and run. -Let’s continue in Africa. -Usione.
12. The hidden cities: Olinda	6	Second	-Coexistence -Citizenship -Self-fulfillment -Social-communitary	-Corral. -More games. -The last.
13. The visible city: Blanca	6	Third	-Coexistence -Self-fulfillment -Social-communitary	-Discovering Blanca. -The invisible cities. -An interview with Pedro Cano. -End of the road.

Five cities will be addressed during the second year of the project, two in each of the first two terms and one in the last. The reason for studying just one city in the last term is due to the accumulated tiredness of teachers and pupils as the year advances and, especially, to the fewer teaching hours available in June. The third term is usually shorter than the other two in any case. During the third year, two cities will again be studied in the first two terms, while the final activity, in the third term, will be carried out in the town of Blanca, the home of Pedro Cano and the town that houses his Foundation, where the original pictures of the Invisible Cities are on view. We hope that the artist himself will be present in this final activity which includes a period of teachers, parents and students living together. The scheduling of all the activities is presented in Table 1.

2.3. Evaluation of the Program

A mixed evaluation methodology (qualitative and quantitative) will be used and which will be specified, moreover, in the Annual General Programming and in the teaching programs (be it as a complement to the core subjects or as a subject in its own right), and it will be regulated by the assessment criteria and indicators specified in each Teaching Unit – city.

Among the qualitative techniques employed are focus groups, interviews, participant observation, analysis of the content of the materials generated by the students, a field diary of the cognitive, emotional, values social learning process acquired, by a pretest-post test design that includes measurements taken before and after the application of the program using various data collection tools that will address the following aspects:

1. A questionnaire for the teachers: level of training in the subject, the need to incorporate the contents into the syllabus, commitment, familiarity with active methodologies, perception of levels of professional wear and tear, etc.
2. A questionnaire for the students: socio-economic status, academic record, attitudes toward active methodologies, toward art resources, commitment, etc.
3. A questionnaire for the families involved: degree of involvement in the ir children’s educational issues, perception of the family atmosphere, commitment to take part in collaborative tasks for the integration of values and art in the syllabus, parent- child relationships, family communication processes, etc.

There are three essential moments in the evaluation of the program: the initial evaluation, the mid-process evaluation and the final evaluation. The initial evaluation will consist of an analysis of the needs and it will be carried out through focus groups and interviews with members of the educational community in order to ascertain the relevance and suitability of the application of the indicators to be envisaged here are the availability and commitment of those involved (teachers, families and students), the importance of civic-cultural learning and the need to express emotions and knowledge of artistic works.  

In this initial evaluation each teacher will give a weighting according to the characteristics of his or her students and the centre, and will check the degree of competence acquisition through assessable learning standards that he or she will design to specify the desired knowledge from each unit -city, which should be graduated using indicators of success to determine the different degrees of learning acquisition by the students through rubrics and evaluation scales.

The evaluation of the process is fundamental for the systemization of the experimental application of the Program. This evaluation focuses on determining its sustainability and replicability. We will investigate the effect of the program on its participants (satisfaction, difficulties, coordination mechanisms, etc.) and on its recipients/targets (evaluation of the short-term impact, motivation, participation, etc.), as well as in other areas of the system, for example the non participant members of the community (management team, the interest of students, teachers and families in other years in taking part in this or other similar initiatives).

The internal evaluation of the teaching process and the teaching practice will guide the decision making of the teachers involved in the project. This evaluation will take into account the following aspects at least: 1. The adjustment of the teaching programming and, where relevant, the causes behind the differences produced; 2. Students’ fulfillment of the learning goals and standards; 3. The degree of satisfaction in families and students with the learning process in each area. The evaluation of the teaching process and the teaching practice in the last term of each academic year will be included in the annual school report.

The final evaluation concerns the impact on the educational community. An improvement is expected for most of the indicators envisaged in the tools, which will benefit the psychosocial wellbeing of the students in teaching-learning processes, as well as an improvement ion the school and family atmosphere. We expect to see more efficient teaching as a result of using the methodology in projects of some duration and because of a perception of self-efficacy. It is hoped that the creative capacity of the teachers and students alike will be aroused along with an improvement in interpersonal relationships within the education community. At the scientific and technical level we can expect the incorporation of new methodologies that include artistic content, and also the design of new activities of an inclusive nature that favor the active participation of teachers, students and families.

3. CONCLUSIONS

This collaboration between primary school teachers and scholars of pedagogy was undertaken with the aim of designing a program to develop civic and educational competencies through art (literature and painting). It provided an opportunity to foster mutual enrichment and to reflect on teaching practices, and to attempt to go beyond the teaching-curricular approach and to gain a transversal and integral approach that seeks to involve the whole educational community (Alguacil, 2020; Blasco Magraner & Bernabé Valero, 2016).

Reflecting on the collaboration process allows us to obtain a series of initial considerations for the design and implementation of educational programs focused on developing competencies beginning by fixing the finality of the collaboration, its timing and the assignation of tasks to each participant. It is not a one-way transmission of information but a critical reflection on the part of the participants to follow up and incorporate the improvements they deem opportune and viable.

It is likewise considered recommendable to carry out a detailed study of the competencies that appear in the new education act and their teaching applications. In this way, we are in a position to state that CIVABLES is one of the first materials to be adopted according to the competencies envisaged under the LOMCE, which shows how it is possible to promote the learning of citizenship and art within any discipline

We are aware, and we echo Ortega (2014) and his anthropological reading of the Levinasian theory, that human beings live in a specific space and time. While not undermining the importance of historical knowledge, we hold that it is very important to learn daily life values. Hence, the design of the program to develop consequences needs to start with the reality that surrounds the students and acquire a strong cultural component. The project described is based on the paintings of the well known artist from Murcia, Pedro Cano, in “The Invisible Cities” of Ítalo Calvino. This allows us to children a real and applicable learning experience using the cultural baggage that their own history and surroundings offer. The travels of Marco Polo, described by Calvino, as imaginary as the cities of which he speaks, provides a set of brief descriptions which offer various models of citizenship.

A further innovating aspect of the project is the design of a series of plastic activities related to music, painting, drawing, poetry and sculpture, while emphasizing aspects that favor reflection and critical spirit in the student. All the activities have been grouped under what are known as ITU, in which there are four very important interacting threads: culture, literature, values and arte. These ITU are directed at students in the last years of primary education, where the intention is to bestow a cooperative, constructive and experiential character to the learning of the competencies. The activities are dynamic and fun in their design, mixing together varied situations that enable students to explore and systemize literary texts and pictorial art and this favor the development of the curricular competencies and the learning of values. Furthermore, the intention with the ITUs was to develop socio-affective and emotional aspects and so encourage student interrelation but, also, through group and family involvement, reinforce values in their two main contexts: the family and the school.

Funding: This study received no specific financial support.

Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgement: All authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study.

REFERENCES

Alguacil, P. (2020). Proposal of a competency task for primary classrooms through cooperative learning. Aularia, Digital Communication Magazine, 9(1), 33-38.

Blasco Magraner, J. S., & Bernabé Valero, G. (2016). Learning by projects through the work of the musician Vicente Peydró: The convergence of the arts. Spiral, 9(18), 37-45.Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.25115/ecp.v9i18.999 .

Council of Europe. (2005). Council of Europe framework convention on the value of cultural heritage for society (Faro, 27.X.2005). Council of Europe Treaty Series, 199.

Escamilla, A. (2009). Competencies in classroom programming. Barcelona: Graó.

Ferreyra, H., Orrego, S., Peretti, G. C., Fontana, M., Pasut, M., Seara, R. C., & Schneider, C. S. (2008). De aprendizajes, competencias y capacidades en la Educación Primaria. Desandando caminos para construir nuevos senderos. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación, 47(3), 1-13.

Gonczi, A. (2000). Review of international trends and developments in competency based education and training. In Argüelles, A. and Gonczi, A., Competency based education. A world perspective (pp. 15-40). City de México: Limusa.

González, A., López, J., Martín, G., Martínez, G., Moril, R., Mula, J. M., & Escámez, J. (2011). Learning by competencies in compulsory education. Valencia: Brief.

Guerrero, C. (2015). Teaching-learning and evaluation by competences in educational centers. In Maquilón, J. (Coord.). Research and Innovation in Early Childhood Education and Primary Education (pp. 1-12): University of Murcia.

Kumagai, A. K., & Lypson, M. L. (2009). Beyond Cultural competence: Critical consciousness, social justice and Multicultural Education. Academic Medicine. Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 84(6), 782-787.Available at: https://doi.org/10.1097/acm.0b013e3181a42398 .

López-Facal, R., Miralles, P., Prats, J. y., & Gómez, C. J. (2017). History teaching and educational competencies. Barcelona: Graó.

Méndez, A., Sierra, B., & Mañana, J. (2013). Perceptions and beliefs of primary school teachers in the Principality of Asturias about basic competences. Education Magazine, 362, 737-761.

Moya, J., & Luengo, F. (2011). Core competencies as powers for citizenship. In Moya, J., Luengo, F. & Asociación Proyecto Atlántida. Theory and practice of basic skills (pp. 29-48). Barcelona: Graó.

OEI. (2011). Artistic education: Organization of Ibero-American States, OEI.

Ortega, P. (2014). Educate in otherness. In Ortega, P. (ed.). Educate in otherness (7-35). Colombia: Redipe and Editum.

Sarramona, J. (2000). Basic competences at the end of compulsory schooling. Education Magazine, 322, 255-288.

Sarramona, J. (2014). Basic competences and curriculum. The case of Catalonia. Theory of Education. Interuniversity Magazine, 26, 205-228.Available at: https://doi.org/10.14201/teoredu2014261205228

Sierra, B., Méndez, A., & Mañana, J. (2013). Programming by basic competences: Towards an interdisciplinary methodological change. Complutense Journal of Education, 24(1), 165-184.

UNESCO. (2006). Roadmap for artistic education. Paper presented at the World Conference on Arts Education: Building Creative Capacities for the 21st Century Lisbon, March 6-9, UNESCO.

UNESCO. (2014). Managing cultural world heritage. Paris: UNESCO.

Views and opinions expressed in this article are the views and opinions of the author(s), Asian Journal of Contemporary Education shall not be responsible or answerable for any loss, damage or liability etc. caused in relation to/arising out of the use of the content.

---

Footnote: