Il progetto ONFOODS nel supporto alla riflessività sistemica: incentivare il protagonismo di genitori, insegnanti e bambini nel ri-pensare la mensa scolastica

The school canteen is a place where the dimensions of health, education and socialization appear closely intertwined and sometimes inseparable. Within it, moreover, different subjects - teachers, children, parents and canteen staff - with different goals, constraints, and cultures move. To build a shared educational project and make the canteen an environment of learning and growth, it is useful to analyze it as a space of relationship, confrontation, and sometimes contention between educational institutions and families, between food and health policies. In this contribution, we will refer to the ON FOODS project and “how” the different project phases supported teachers to develop operational and reflective skills aimed at making future designs sustainable in relation to educational quality starting from the canteen moment. The goal of the project is to increase knowledge, awareness and reflective skills toward this important educational routine that implicates a number of dimensions and meanings that profoundly impact the entire educational daily routine. The reflections are the outcome of participatory training research and extensive ethnographic work within 6 preschools, 6 primary and 2 secondary schools in the cities of Bologna, Modena, and Rome. Initial results show that in order to make the changes brought about by the project sustainable, it is necessary to work on the development of a “systemic reflexivity” in which to activate the protagonism and participation of all the actors involved