At the end of every year’s activities, the organisers and I ask ourselves these questions:  have the youngsters gained anything from their time spent here with us? and if so, what?
The first answer that comes to mind is the recognition of values which is a direct result of  self-evaluation skills.  These help the youngsters to internalise the concept that we should judge a person  not by how they are dressed, but by the positive values that they manage to express when associating with others.
Then, there is the mixing of cultures and, therefore, the skill of understanding which means trying to understand the behaviour and attitudes of others.  This does not necessarily involve accepting all behaviour as right, but trying to understand why people behave in ways that are different from our own.  Think how much less fanaticism there would be if everybody could be trained in the field of  understanding  and respecting each other.
The next consideration is that of knowing other languages and English.  The friendly atmosphere of a group encourages youngsters to communicate and to make themselves understood.  This delicate phase makes learning easier.  The Cultural Mediators are a great help here.  These are young people who live in Italy, but come from other countries.  They help the younsters who speak their own language communicate with the Italian boys and girls at the centre.  This does not limit the use of English in any way, but undoubtedly helps the learning of a few words and expressions in another language.  The International Dictionary, which is compiled at the end of each session, bears witness to this.
What is there to be said about food?  This is a tough problem to deal with as good dietary principles run contrary to all the advertising messages so cleverly conveyed to our youngters by the advertising industry.  When we do manage to achieve our aims in this area, the youngters themselves realise how much more physical and mental energy they have when they eat a healthy diet.  In all honesty, I have to admit that in recent years, this ambitious objective has been left to one side, to allow space for other  demands dictated by the presence of so many young foreigners.  However, as the saying goes:
“the strength of a chain is determined by the strength of the weakest link.”  Every summer we try to work out how and where to intervene most actively in the youngsters’ best interests.
So, we promise to have another go at the question of a healthy diet next summer.  We will try our best to help the foreign children to be less accepting and more questioning of  all the consumerist advertising which comes into their homes “by courtesy of”  the media.  We will try to make them understand that  what is healthy does not alway tempt the palate.  A final thought on the matter:  Italian children appear to be much better informed as regards “junk food” than others.  This must be the result of the efforts of the school and the family in educating them as to the importance of a healthy diet.
The next topic for consideration is  a range of physical education activities, which is essential for good sports education.  Good sports education should ensure that a child understands the need for a wide-ranging, basic grounding in all physical exercise.  These skills can then be applied to the various sporting disciplines, even to the more artistic ones such as dance, singing, music, art and drama. This fundamental point often appears to be overlooked by sports coaches who appear to want to train youngsters in one particular sport with the aim of achieving good competition results.  The task of learning a sporting discipline itself is made easier by having the right approach to sport.  It can be said that a sport can develop all its educational potential if it is preceded by a thorough grounding in general physical education.  These are the conditions required for a sport to be a life-long commitment, not just a passing phase.
There are two more life skills that we seek to instil:  conflict management and a sense of responsibility.  Living together in a group gives rise to many situations in which these two life skills can be learnt: sleeping in a dormitory, team games and working together in groups on various projects such as the environment, entertainment and taking turns at being on duty.
Opportunities for meeting up and comparing themselves with others give the youngsters the chance to learn the strategies necessary for reaching agreement and compromise, which are important skills to develop.
The survival instinct and good behaviour  encourage a sense of social awareness and of self-esteem.  Those who accept the challenge go home as winners.  However,  those who continually phone home, stay on the side-lines, do not join in and do not draw on their own personal energies,  give up the chance to acquire the  autonomy that this type of experience offers.
The concept of fully exploiting the three phases: before, during and after is an educational practice which runs contrary to current thinking.  According to this method, we can train the youngsters by giving them various duties to carry out during their stay, for example: being the pupil on duty,  taking part in the Ecological Group, working on the Magazine Committee.  This theory opposes  general trends as it is in direct contrast with the pollution of the mind from the invasion of advertising.  We are not satisfied with one, single purchase or with one game but with what they give us, including the clearing up when we have finished with them.
At the end of each session, I often speak about the miracle of seeing all these youngsters working together as one.  To an outsider, there might appear to be complete chaos, but we like to think of it as organised chaos, which is a pre-requisite for freedom of expression, whilst respecting others.  I evaluate the level of improvement by comparing the behaviour of the group which is leaving to that of the group which is arriving.  When I meet up with parents and tell them about my observations, they usually confirm them.  They say that they have noticed a great improvement in their children.  They have often noted  increased independence and improved social skills.  They also comment on the new friendships which have been formed during their stay with us, even though this often involves more frequent use of the the telephone!  My reply to these comments is that a successful outcome is always the result of good preparation and the hard work of all those people who help the youngsters.

Dear parents, youngsters, teachers, schools, don’t these seem to be good enough reasons for taking part in the Casa Montagna experience?  You will find further proof of how we transform our thoughts into actions in the following pages.

Carlo Devoti  Master of Sport