Living alongside one another in a spirit of acceptance evokes the concept of tolerance that, from Erasmus da Rotterdam to Voltaire to Primo Mazzolari, calls upon us to understand that the only possible choice for mankind, from time immemorial, has been to educate towards coexistence within milieus that increasingly differ by culture, customs, ways of thinking and behaviours. Beliefs and concepts sometimes refer to values that may also be quite remote from and unlike ours and, as a result, our capacity to find points of contact with other persons becomes the condition, not only for survival, but for growth itself as a human person. To know how to interpret and yet keep one's own points of reference is a constant challenge to our intelligence guided by the will to do good. The concept of free will is based precisely on the strength of the human will, driven to dedicate itself to whatever safeguards, or to turn away from the search for salvation. Freedom cannot exist if we replace it with new absolutisms and mental blocks that hinder the realisation of that growing humanisation plan, founded on responsibility and care. This paper broaches the subject of the relevance of education to tolerance: on one hand, a plan for detecting the limits within us and, on the other, the need for creating a human community, with the purpose of defining a common interest to live for and commit ourselves. So, it is a matter of choosing whether to live through another cold war or shift towards much more promising horizons of encounter and solidarity.

Our present time is characterised by many contradictions and the aspect of uncertainty indicates a sense of our deep loss of values. Education is the traditional space, in which generations create meanings and adults prefigure the future. Despite the idea of liquid modernity, which dominates our existence, we are convinced that we inherit meaningful testimonies of schools born in the spirit of the Reform from the pedagogic culture of the last two centuries. Schools, such as Dalton, Jena Plan, Decroly and Freinet, are still alive and bringing us a new message of citizenship education coherent with the impulse of their founders. Following our field study to investigate the reality of the Schools of Method in the areas of the Flanders and Brussels we were able to draw a solid concept of community. In the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, we assume that the modern western culture reaches its task to convert the dispute into tolerance. Citizenship education wishes to overcome any separations and indicates the road to peace and harmony. It is not by chance that Reform Schools are now reaffirming the original impulse. They are transforming the contradictions of our postmodern society into the management of daily education. Headmasters and teachers are seriously opting for movement and variety of the curriculum against school stereotypes of the disciplines. Children become protagonists of the reformation, using the methodology of dialogue, development and discovery. Teachers and parents appear to be fundamental parts of the process, and learning democracy in school begins with the practice of a council of pupils: discussing, deciding, doing. The external world actively enters schools to shape life. History is composed of the biographies of senior citizens, mainly grandfathers, and languages are matter of pride for children from families with migrant backgrounds.

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Since 2008-2009, the discipline "Citizenship and Constitution" was introduced by the Law 169/2008, in all Italian schools. From pre-primary to upper secondary school, the intention has been to promote the formation of social awareness and critical consciousness to educate good citizens. The culture of Citizenship and Constitution has assumed then a permanent, structural character in schools. The concept of citizenship has gone through various definitions, it is prevailing the idea of uniting citizenship with the content of the Constitution, thereby reinvigorating the map of common values. More recent is the concept of active citizenship, interpreted in terms of participation and social and civil action in the local, national and European community. The university curriculum of teacher education contemplates the discipline ‘Intercultural Pedagogy and Citizenship Education’ in order to prepare students to become responsible teachers towards social critical themes such as the question of human rights. This article presents results on the cultural relevance of learning Citizenship values as part of curricula both in school and at University and gives the essential reasons to prepare students to become teachers for a school able to orienting children towards democratic citizenship.Keywords: citizenship education, italian constitution, teacher education, human rights, university curriculum

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