The Faro way in Education: Lessons from Heritage and Architecture.

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Keynote abstract

"Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world", said Mandela. And our world, and cities in particular, are in great need of change. There are plenty of challenges cities face today. Growing populations with fewer resources. Greater diversity with lesser tolerance. Better living conditions with lesser equity. Though these and many other challenges were long alienated from heritage education or addressed as externalities, threats either ignored or to mitigate their impact on heritage. Quite the reverse, heritage education was focused on heritage conservation, mastering the adaptation and mitigation of any change or cause.

Heritage education grew as a niche in many disciplines, such as archaeology, architecture, history, engineering, and museum studies. Education programs fully dedicated to heritage are limited, and the ones bravely created often struggle to thrive against disciplinary traditions and outreach in job offers and funding streams. But this will not be the focus of this keynote, even if the disciplinary background and biases play a crucial role in how far co-creation is (or not) successfully integrated into education.

Instead, I focused my keynote on answering the challenging question, given the context of the Faro Convention and this international conference. How participatory is heritage education? I will answer based on my experience from the last two decades and literature while discussing the context in which co-creation is growing in heritage education, addressing curricula, staff, and students. I will use examples of education practices in disciplines such as architecture and thematic areas such as heritage and sustainability to illustrate shifts in knowledge, skills, and attitude. Last, I will share a roadmap for co-creation in heritage education and challenge you to join me in your roles as students, teachers, or researchers.