The current Italian educational context and the social situation in which we find ourselves show a growing interest and a latent need to integrate work on the recognition, expression and manifestation of emotions and internal states also in the learning process. The Ministry of Education, schools and training institutions show a deep interest in students' experiences and question themselves on the ways that allow emotions to be an integral part and not an obstacle to the learning process. For this reason, it is important to know and understand in depth what emotions are, how they are functional to students' learning processes and support the activities of the teaching staff, promoting, among other things, inclusiveness and support for students. This now near future poses new challenges to the school, which have been taken up by the Research Center on the Theory of Mind (CeRiToM) of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, composed of a group of researchers and developmental and educational psychologists.

 

CeRiToM seeks to respond to new social and cultural demands through its twenty-year experience in the study of the development of social skills (Theory of Mind, empathy, prosociality, etc.) and combines this tradition with the innovation of techniques deriving from experiences of exchange and interaction with European and international research institutions. In addition to research, over the years CeRiToM has structured interventions and workshops for teachers of classes of different types and grades. Given this research and application background, CeRiToM represents an important interlocutor for institutes and schools of all types and grades interested in knowing how to use and integrate research results into educational and teaching practices that affirm the importance of listening to the emotions of children and young people, making emotions real strengths to support them in the learning process.