In these days, children and teenagers are experimenting with a new mode of school, at a distance. Let’s see how to create the best conditions to guarantee everyone the opportunity to continue studying without stress and serenity
The distance training system for Italian students is not yet fully operational, but the parents already question the A thousand problems to be solved in the management of everyday life.
Let’s start with “optimal” situations: at home there are at least two terminals, a computer and a mobile phone, or a computer and a tablet and so on. Maybe there are more. However, the necessary technological tools exist. But…
Problem number 1: space
How to create a space for the child a minimum protected, who isols from noises and allows to maintain the concentration necessary to follow the lessons online?
If we imagine an ideal situation we think of a room, perhaps shared with a brother or sister. But the reality of many families is not so lucky. So what?
The perception of personal, protected space, which promotes attention and concentration, also passes through visual signals. With a little imagination and with the help of the child it will be possible to create his “school desk”separated from cardboard dividers, perhaps customized with drawings or with colored stiff stripes, on which the baby can also stick notes, notes, phrases, etc.
In the situation of inevitable crowding of the house – all in the same space and throughout the day – the need for personal spaces, protected by the invasion of the little brother or large sister who claims the computer, becomes strong. Paying attention to a lesson requires much more effort, and the temptation to give in to distractions is great.
What is the role of parents in this case? Better to check that the child is careful, that he does not distract himself, that he performs how much he is proposed during the lesson, perhaps helping him a little?
In general, the online school should be considered in all respects school: a child’s relationship with the teacher and his companions, exactly as if he were in the classroom. Parents in this particular situation is responsible for guaranteeing as much as possible a context in favor of maintaining attention, without interfering with what the child doesexcept in extreme cases, for example if the child blatantly abandons the activity. And here too it will be useful to ask what can have made it difficult to maintain the concentration time required, and look for solutions that can help him together with the child.
Problem number 2: time
Many good and prepared teachers are clearly saying it: We are learning to use a new tool, tests, adaptations, improvements in itinere will be needed. And one of the questions they ask is: how long an 8 -year -old boy manages to keep the levels of attention and concentration high during an online lesson? An 11-12 boy? A bigger one? How to build lessons to keep attention alive?
Is it just a problem of teachers? I believe that at this moment the collaboration of the most available parents, closer to children, will be of great importance: Those who can do it should observe their children in these initial phases, collect their impressions, their difficulties, and keep the constructive confrontation with professors activeto report what is working well and what is working less well, what unexpected problems and difficulties are emerging, what ways they have found to overcome them.
Problem number 3: the family organization
Obviously it is necessary to organize the use of computers, tablets, smartphones available in the family to allow everyone to carry out their activities: the work of the parents, the study of children, but also the moments of leisure and social contacts. In a situation like this you risk transforming every request into conflict: “I need the computer, I have to do a search”, “but I have to send your homework within half an hour”!, “I wait for a video call from the office …”
Organizing yourself also means adjusting individual and family rhythms in some way. The risks of the so -called Smart Workingand probably also of the online school, I am canceling the difference between the time of work or study, the time of personal and playful activities (reading, music, social contacts, simple idleness) and the time of domestic cooperation activity (cooking, tidying up, shopping). Sleep could also be affected: in a situation too disorganized the sleep-wake rhythm often loses its regularity.
Talking about organization could frighten: even at home? In the family? But at a time when the rhythms of usual life were canceled – I go out, I go to school or at work, I meet friends or go to the gym or to music lesson, to shop, walk, come home etc. – The lack of rules forces an excess of shared decision -making moments and risks becoming the cause of stress and malaise both for parents and for children.
It may be useful to build a time that includes telescuents, hours of meals and hours of rest, game, musical activity, reading; The hours in which the tasks are done if required.
It is also useful to define the moments of the day when parents are present and/or available to support the child in the study and those in which they cannot be disturbed, because in turn they work or rest, chat, do other things. This makes the time that suddenly seems to have stopped less “liquid”, forcing us to share spaces that we previously shared only at a very specific hours; It creates a “structure” that is reassuring for children but also for adults, reduces the risks of unproductive boredom, demotivation; keeps active and creative.
Activities and creativity that can also be used for a very important purpose, and at this time truly essential: solidarity.
Solidarity and sharing
We talked about lucky situations. But the others? More than 15% of Italian children live in a house where he does not have access to the networkbecause there is not a computer, because if there is a cell phone it serves the greats for work, and in any case it cannot be left to the boy for long times. Because the connection is insufficient. Because the living conditions do not even allow the minimum of protection that allows the child to follow the lessons with a little tranquility.
The schools have already activated to verify the availability of technological tools in the different families. The most fortunate ones, those who have a professional studio or work in the computer scope, could in turn check the tools perhaps a little overcome they have at home, in stock, and make them available to schools.
But above all Solidarity is attention to the difficulty of others: no one should be left behind, each parent should take action and make his son active in proposing support and help to classmates who for any reason are struggling to use online teaching. Reviewing the tasks on the phone together, giving technical advice to those who struggle to use the computer platform, in short, make a little of their time, a little of their competence, to transform the mandatory closure into their homes in the opening and sharing. Remote, but with warmth.
