Studies show that at school children learn better by collaborating and learning from their mistakes, and that the competition is useless and deleterious
At school we go to learn, everyone knows this. What you still ask for is what is the best method to do it. In order to answer this question, it is necessary to think about the most recent studies and scientific knowledge.
How does learning work?
The frontal lesson, the passive listening, the question used as a tool for verifying learning and an absolutely considered assessment (therefore made without taking into account the context, the child’s personality, his starting point and his development): they are all tools that by their nature lead to selecting and privileging a certain type of student, the one that manages to learn according to precise and pre -established ways. However, This model that still pervades Italian teaching culture has failed.
The mind of children is like a sponge, Maria Montessori defined it in fact “the absorbent mind”, because it is characterized by a great neuronal plasticity which allows her to absorb what she receives from the surrounding environment.
Children have the advantage of not yet being able to activate, towards what they learn, the forms of resistance typical of what Jean Piaget called logical-rational thought, which only comes with pre-adolescence and which allows each of us to think about their thoughts and therefore, possibly, to prevent certain knowledge from becoming part of our heritage. So, If the first requirement for learning is a favorable and stimulating environment, the second is to let the child experience his new knowledge through practical exploration. To learn, in fact, he has the physiological need to tune in new knowledge with those old ones in his possession, and to approach the acquisition of a competence by putting their resources at stake.
The learning process is therefore a necessarily slow and different process for everyone: it may happen that a pupil feels and trying back, wrong and suddenly understands. These steps are fundamental and it is useless, inconvenient and often dangerous to continuously block them with checks and assessments that define what is right and what is wrong, what is correct or what is incorrect.
Wrong you learn
The effectiveness of some evaluation tools, such as the Invalsi tests, who believe they can establish the level of learning by triggering competitive dynamics, have no scientific foundation and forget that, substantially, it is really wrong that you learn.
Furthermore, It is important to keep in mind that children, rather than adults, learn from peers. He is the companion, especially the one with a slightly higher competence, that activates the imitation by allowing children to recognize themselves in what is their development potential: I observe a partner who is able to draw an elephant and I also recognize my potential in his competence. I try, maybe wrong, but in the end I can. Otherwise, it may happen that adult skills are too distant from childhood cognitive skills: the child tries to adapt, but does not learn.
Learning in a group, stimulating and activating processes of mutual interaction, even conflictual, allows the development of very important relational and social dynamics on the motivational level, which favor educational success. Therefore, the competition at school is not only useless, but it is also very harmful.
The partner is not an opponent to beat
As the most recent neurobiological and psychological studies have shown, at the basis of effective learning there are processes that have nothing to do with the competition. Vice versa, The effective school is the one that knows how to transform the class into a continuous and systematic interaction laboratory among the children, who work, together, according to a concrete and shared experience. This method allows, through problematization, to cross errors and use them for learning, rather than competition.
Unfortunately, Italy, in particular with the Gelmini reform that has proposed the votes in primary school and even the possibility of being rejected on the basis of numerical insufficiency, is significantly regressed. Continuously evaluating with numerical scores what the pupil is doing means interfering arbitraryly with that mental, cognitive, but also sensory flow, thanks to which the child acquires competence. Negative assessments do not produce any improvement in school performance, constitute only a punitive and mortifying method.
If we want a different school, a school where children first of all are well and collaborate in learning, where arrogance and abuse are not unleashed, it is necessary to drastically reduce the evaluations. To be effective, in fact, the evaluation must be evolutionary, that is, consider pupils on the basis of their gradual progress and not absolutely on the basis of testing. What matters is not to check whether or not a child knows a certain content at a given moment, but if his learning is proceeding and growing in a harmonious way.
The strength of the group
A class capable of supporting all its pupils and pursuing what should be the real objective of the school, that is, everyone’s learning, also requires other precautions.
You cannot think of working well with groups over 25 pupils: the so -called “chicken coop classes” are not functional at learning at all. The ideal would be to work with class groups between 20 and 25 pupils, because the priority for each teacher must be to make the class work as a group. So It is very important in the first days of school to build belonging to the class group through socio-affective activities which allow pupils to recognize each other, to build cohesion, a sense of belonging to a common learning experience.
In this sense, ritualization activities are particularly useful: at the beginning of the school day it is important dedicate a moment to find yourself as a group; maintain a space for the management of conflicts; Discarding the school year with significant and common moments (such as the trip, the show, the party) in which children are involved in the first person. Then there are many other precautions, such as arranging the desks so that the possibility for pupils to work together, to communicate, to confront each other.
To conclude, a final appeal: don’t look for the school where you can win your children. Look for the school where pupils collaborate to learn together.
The Finnish school model
While Italy is struggling to issue the reform project of the good school, hinged on the triad competition-value, Finland hastened to reform its school which, to tell the truth, already enjoyed excellent health. The Finnish school model is, in fact, one of the most advanced and most studied in the world. The new pedagogical model, which has already started for two years and, according to estimates, intended to completely supplant the old by 2020, provides The replacement of the classic school “subjects” with thematic areas, or “topics” within which the study of all aspects that that certain theme involves involves. For example, students of some Finnish high schools can study “European Union”, a subject that includes basic principles of economics, history of states and languages that talk about the nations of the EU.
The traditional frontal lesson, with the professor explaining and the pupils who listen to, will end up definitively in the oblivion: Finnish students will be organized in small groups that will face problems of different nature, experiencing their learning and working together. Most teachers have already received training in order to work according to the new school model and the Finnish government has undertaken to provide an economic incentive to all teachers who voluntarily adhere to this new model.
