Finally graduated… Università di Bologna Laurea in Economia & Marketing UNIBO.

Comparing the studies completed in the Italian university with my previous Arts degree permitted me to understand and live the fundamental differences between John Henry Newman’s and Wilhelm von Humboldt’s idea of University.

The first, inspiration for the Anglo-Saxon model of education, conceives teachers and students as protagonists of a relationship defined by mutual dialog. Cooperative spirit and human contact sustains a process of mutual education, passed from generation to generation, that can even do without a systematic use of books.

Humboldt’s model, known as the German model, succeded during the industrial revolution and rooted itself throughout continental Europe, conceiving the student as a passive subject, that can only ‘pretend’ to receive knowledge. With no cooperation nor participation in his/her own education, students await while teachers, ‘holders of truth’, transmit their knowledge from the top. In this case most of the time books become the only reference.

Un ringrazamiento molto speciale per Julia e Isabel.