Citizenship can be seen as a status or a choice. If it's a choice, it's dynamic, always changing, and works on multiple levels, because a choice needs to be renewed, shows up in different ways, and can lead to changes. Dynamic citizenship needs skills like critical thinking, the ability to argue and step outside your comfort zone, and seeing other points of view and ways of thinking as just as valid as your own.
The TEDYC project focuses on developing and strengthening these skills through an anti-bias approach. It is an educational resource that forms part of citizenship and democracy education and the cross-curricular personal development skills included in the curriculum for compulsory education in Ticino.
Simulations of school and town round table discussions
The simulation toolkit developed by the Department of Education and Learning / University of Teacher Education (DFA/ASP) in collaboration with the Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics at the Università della Svizzera italiana and the Berlin-based agency planpolitik, includes three simulation games in two different versions, which can be adapted by trainers in schools and other educational settings and used free of charge in Switzerland on the Senaryon digital platform or in print. The games, aimed at young people aged 12 and over, simulate and reproduce round table discussions at school and city level, last a maximum of 180 minutes and take into account the age differences of the participants, their experience and their ability to read and manage complexity.
The simulations can be accessed by downloading the teaching materials from the TEDYC – Toolkit for Educating to a Dynamic Citizenship page.
An interactive afternoon of continuing education
Yesterday, Wednesday 21 May 2025, a number of teachers gathered at the DFA/ASP to interactively test one of the simulations proposed by the TEDYC project. The group work started with a fictional scenario, that of an imaginary middle school where a group of people consider the clothing worn by the female students to be too revealing. This consideration gave rise to a proposal to introduce a predefined dress code in the school. The teachers divided into several groups (e.g. parent representatives, school administration, educators, etc.), each with a specific role, with the aim of finding a solution to the problem through different arguments, all aimed at reaching a common compromise.