“It’s never too early to book.”
This is the advice for teachers hoping to bring their students to the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) within the context of its education programme during the 2025-26 academic year. The programme, which brings around 1000 students to the Archives each year, is designed for classes from pre-school to university. Students take part in interactive activities that engage them, firsthand, in learning about European memory and the history of European integration through the unique archival holdings of the HAEU. The laboratories are designed to foster critical thinking, civic engagement, and multidisciplinary learning, all tailored to fit at age-appropriate levels.
The HAEU’s educational activities have become a fixture for local schools since its inception in 2013, when Archives director Dieter Schlenker launched the project. It has been listed for several years in Florence’s Chiavi della città catalogue of activities to complement classroom learning, and its reach extends beyond the Florentine territory to schools in other Italian regions and European countries such as France, Greece, Slovenia, and Spain.
The programme has enjoyed support over the years from organisations including the European Parliament Former Members Association (FMA), the Istituto Storico della Resistenza Toscana (ISRT), the University of Florence – Department of Legal Sciences, the Istituto Rossi e Salvemini, the European Studies Student Association, Europass Teacher Academy, Pittsburgh University, and the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.
The story behind the Archives’ education programme, as well as some of the techniques employed by its educational team, coordinated by Dr Leslie Hernández Nova, may be discovered in the HAEU’s new online exhibition Europe in the Making: Education through Archives. The digital exhibition was curated by Lucia Delle Sedie and Matilde Miniati with Barbara D’Ambrosio and Anastasia Remes.
Photo: Members of the HAEU's education team, from left: Lucia Delle Sedie, Barbara D'Ambrosio, Matilde Miniati, Davide Tomaselli and Leslie Hernández Nova.