The critical phase we are experiencing has highlighted some old school problems, unfortunately always current. What are the educational priorities from which to start again?
The tsunami of the pandemic emergency has overwhelmed our daily life e has questioned consolidated habits In all life environments, relationship, education. Overlooking a new year and the challenges that he will bring with him, we try to reflect on the school, which from January 7, unless different prescriptions should start again “in presence” in all school orders (including higher, first at 50% of the presences, then 75%).
If, on the one hand, it is really difficult to imagine the evolutionary scenarios of the situation we are going through, however, it is always possible, indeed a duty, questioning one of the most important educational agencies. What do you start again? What school would we like to build for girls and boys, girls and boys? In this school, What is the role that families can play? How to accompany the learning process of children, helping them to develop not only their knowledge but also the ability to solve problems? We tried to discuss it with the help of three expertswho agreed to share some reflections on the school we have and what, perhaps, could come.
Respect the spaces
The integration of digital teaching in Italian school everyday life has been difficult from various points of view. Has struggled a lot on practical problems, such as the low availability of connection tools or the unpreparedness to use themwhich have certainly represented difficult obstacles to overcome. But if the “integrated digital teaching” – which is called precisely because It is not proposed to replace the one in presence, but to bring them a contribution – It will continue to play a role in the school of the future, the contribution of the parents must not be forgotten.
“As a pedagogist I often find myself underlining the importance that families know how to find a balance between the offer of support for girls and boys and respect for their autonomy, the privacy of the educational relationship with the teacher,” he told us Raffaele Mantegazza, professor of General and Social Pedagogy at the University of Milan-Bicocca. “This – continues the expert – must also apply to the domestic dimension and, for example, in the moments when digital teaching is used. The role of families is important, but must not become an interference. The boy or girl who carries out a remote lesson must be left alone with his working group, as happens in class in teaching in presence. The intervention of the parent may come in other moments, before and after, through the request to tell what has been done, or with help and support for the study method ».
Why this need to respect personal spaces? MANTEGAZZA underlines: “Pedagogists often find the damage caused by the excessive interference of familieswhich translates into anticipating the problems before they present themselves, in one paving the path that only apparently favors learning, but in reality it is a serious obstacle for the development of autonomy. It is important that families remember that We must not try to prevent children’s mistakesbut, rather, to enhance their educational importance ».
Not “how much”, but “how”
From which points still to start again, then? “From the centrality of the schoolfirst of all – underlines Mantegazza – as an important relational experience, from its fundamental role. The Italian school often cares about the wrong things, resulting in not very functional compared to the needs of the new generations. For example, it has hypertrophic programs but reflects little on the structures to be transmitted, on the tools to be given to interpret realitywhich are more important than the notions, which can always be acquired when it has internalized how to do it ».
Hurry is also a bad adviser, at home as in school. Adds the expert: “Learning needs timewhich, however, is not the same for everyone. What is the point of putting pressure on girls and boys why they quickly carry out their duties, encouraging a mechanical and not very reflective attitude? If, on the one hand, the school must rethink the quantity of the proposed content, on the other the parent can have the important role of encouraging learning that is made of observation, reflection, personal reworking. It is a way to bring girls and boys closer to the methods and values of modern science, which should be a priority in the educational field. It has been talked about for a long time, but little of concrete has been brought to school reality ».
There is also a not very functional way of understanding didactic innovation: “Often – adds Mantegazza – when it comes to the introduction of methods presented as alternatives, for example the so -called” reversal class “, the impression that it is magical solutions is transmitted, able to solve all the problems, even without focusing on the only essential aspect: the educational report. When this works, and is truly stimulating for students, everything is more effective, even the different methods used, which are, in fact, tools. From this point of view, Lat a distance teaching he was able to highlight the problems and highlight the well -set dynamics. It worked well, in fact, where the educational relationship had been built adequately and made gaps emerge where, however, it had been neglected ».
A courageous choice: rethink the school
Second Daniela Lucangeli, ordinary of education and development psychology at the University of Paduafor a long time the time has come to make a courageous choice, whose necessity has been clear for decades and that the health emergency has underlined once more. The school needs a substantial change: «If we look at what the school still represents – notes the expert – Let’s see an institution that preserves the structure given by the gentle reform, but in the meantime the training needs of our country have changed a lot». It is certainly necessary to recognize that the school reforms were different, but they have essentially translated into changes of the individual gears, intervening little on the actual model.
Today a “refresh” or a “make up” is no longer enough, but but A real modification of the condition of “health” of the school is necessary. Lucangeli underlines: “If at the time of the gentle reform the goal was the literacy of the country, today we cannot fail to realize that the school’s purposes go far further, given that studies have long indicated that the ability to read, write and account for verbal and numerical skills, for example, precede the action of the school itself. Girls and boys now have different needs, to which school can and must answer ».
The neglected skills
«We think – adds Lucangeli – to a series of absolutely necessary skills but often left outside the school. I refer, for example, to prosocial capacitywhich favor collaboration and the life of relationship, or to education for discernment and critical senseparticularly important especially in adolescence to extricate themselves in the intense flow of current communication, in which the hoaxes and the fake news they are on the agenda. In general, It is essential to ask ourselves in which direction we want the school to move and which towns and citizens wishes to trainovercoming the setting focused on the judgment and focusing on the interpretation of knowledge ».
The guide of science
The enormous progress of scientific knowledge in the field of learning psychology should also represent a guide in this overall rethinking project. Adds Lucangeli: «We are still waiting for a school that concretely translates the progress of scientific knowledge in the field of neuroscience and development psychology. I consider an educational project necessary that reflects, from the years of the nest to the university ones, the different stages of cognitive, emotional, emotional development in respect of individual differences and the collegiality of knowledge. If we do not have the courage to do it, you will run the concrete risk of increasingly removing the new generations from the affection to the school, understood as a resource in which to bring out their potential and their best. We risk losing them, entrusting them to other global training systems ».
The search for spaces for comparison and training
What can families do in this? “Their role is, in my opinion, central,” says the expert. «What I have in mind is not only what happens now in the collegial bodies of the school. I believe it is important to commit to soliciting new spaces of debate and comparison and offer, why not, also active training spaces for parents». It is a need that has already shown its functionality in some contexts.
Second Adele Vestte, professor of mathematics and trainer specialized in the field of teaching Even for students with special educational needs, the key to effectiveness lies in one systemic visionwhich involves all the actors on the field: «I personally had a way to find that even in the emergency situation we lived, in the contexts in which there was a strong agreement between school and family and the collaboration was constant, everything took place more easily, while The lack of communication has amplified the already existing problems», He told us. «Some schools and training institutes with which I collaborated, for example, with the activation of teaching teaching, have also thought of offering courses for parents on basic digital skills, and this has made them easier to accompany the learning of the children. We then think about the importance of the correct and safe use of the network and web resources, which the parent must be ready to support, together with the school ».
Even in the case of students with special educational needs, families are called to participate and share the training process. Adds guise: «For example, Recall that the personalized didactic plan provides for an active contribution of familieswho help teachers find strategies that allow students with special educational needs to overcome their difficulties. The challenge is not to reduce this role to a simple bureaucratic fulfillmentwhich does not translate into anything concrete. In the case of the student with disabilities, the new legislation provides for an increasingly active involvement of families, who are called to observe carefully, also using the guide of specific grids, their children in the domestic environment, to complete the observations made at school by teachers. To offer specific training, therefore, seems important. In general, educational agencies, especially school and family, must support each other, respecting the different roles ».
Program, do not improvise
Adds clothes: «It is always fundamental, then, reflect on the programming valueof the long gaze, aimed at the objectives of what is done at school. Programming means this. It is important, also here, not to reduce this act to simple bureaucracy. The programming really serves when it is functional to the work that must be done. This also applies to the use of technologies. If we think of a school where digital teaching integrates that in presence, calendar activities and sharing its objectives with families is a way to allow what we do to best express its potential “.
