For more than two months, children have been following lessons at a distance, who continue to be a challenge for both parents and teachers. It would be appropriate to take advantage of the weeks that remain to imagine a new teaching, so as not to be found unprepared in September
It’s seven in the morning, Silvia drinks a coffee and controls her son’s electronic register. Today there are history, art and mathematics. So: two videos and two history cards; a video of art and a drawing; Two videos and two mathematics cards. Watch history videos to understand in what sequence they must be seen and how the cards are combined. In the meantime, a mother writes to her who, like her, is checking the register: she can’t open a video … No, here, she opens! But the drama is that his printer has finished the cartridge. Then he asks her if you please print the cards, she can hang them on the gate and later go to get them. Okay, when he will print that of his son, he will print them double.
It’s eight and Silvia has prepared only the history material.
Fortunately, his son has not yet woken up. Proceeds with mathematics.
Check the phone, the class chat is silent. He writes: “Hey girls, how are you?” First the silence and then a shower of smileys: greetings, anger, laughter, woman who runs … think that, probably, all mothers are doing the same thing and are all running, like her.
The tiredness of families
As the days go by, the impatience begins to emerge. It is not easy to follow children. It would be necessary to support them in the explanations, in the vision of videos, in writing. Some parents work and during the day they are not there. Children are with grandparents, who are not very familiar with technology. Parents are worried, aware of the fact that their baby will remain behind.
Others believe that it is not right to support the children in the execution of all the tasks and suggest that teachers should make sure that children can carry out what they are assigned themselves. But this is not possible in the early years of primary. In fact, if we think about it, Children are constantly followed for as long as they remain at school: The teacher is always present, he guides them to discover the knowledge and in the execution of the exercises. Now, in essence, parents have become the physical substitutes of teacherswhich seems to limit themselves to preparing the material. But it is not true: they seek it or build it, prepare it and then correct it. All. With a amount of work that is not seen but that is important.
Judgments and recriminations
Distance teaching is perceived by families such as HomeSchooling. Parents, especially for primary children, have become an active part in the teaching process. And, just or wrong it is, when a person is an active part, the right to express one’s opinion is also recognized, both regarding what is done, and regarding how the topics and materials are organized and proposed.
With a certain evidence both the strengths and the weakness, not only of teachers, but also of the parents and, inevitably, of the educational institution, emerge with a certain evidence. And as usual the great analyzes begin. More than two months have passed since the beginning of the pandemic and the parents begin to make requestssometimes wrongly and others right.
The and teachers are judgedand this time with alleged knowledge of the facts: all parents see with how much commitment and in what way every teacher is facing the situation. There are those who are reinventing themselves, but there are also those who have disappeared.
At the same time Families are also judged: parents present, absent, available, arrogant, presumptuous, humble, culturally prepared or totally inadequate.
The work of the teacher at a distance
It is seven in the morning also at Grazia’s house. While drinking coffee, he lights the computer to check if the parents sent all the tasks of the day before. More than two months have passed since the closure of the school. A sigh. Her pupils are missing. A teacher without children is like a plane without passengers. How do you teach without a smile, without looking in the eyes, without encouraging, without seeing the gaze of the listener, of those who begin to understand or those who crown their forehead for the commitment?
“Look at – thinks Grazia – Lucia’s drawings, always so beautiful. And those of Marco? He has always done bruttini drawings and now they have become works of art. Here there will be the hand of mom or dad. Ah here, we see Giulia’s answer … this, sure, did not think so”. And so grace reflects: Now, each pupil has a different teacher. At this moment, to teach, to follow the children, to encourage, to encourage parents, perhaps the grandparents, or the babysitter.
“Damn, Tommaso’s duties have not arrived this time either. And not even those of Hussem. I am losing them. What can I do? I already uploaded everything for today? Control: the video with the explanation is there, the story is there, the card is there. Today there will also be the video election”.
Integrate the points of view
Teachers and parents found themselves facing the same reality, but from two different points of view. The one forced to move on a land that know little and the other private individuals of the most active and effective part of their professionalism.
There is still a few weeks and, why not, even summer to try to build adequate strategies. To test new methodologies in view of a reopening of the school, in September, of which the mode is still unknown. In the meantime, the children have lost motivation. For many, the school has translated into a mountain of tasks to be made, for others in a continuous Gimcana to be able to connect.
There are teachers who by their will, or by directive of the Headmaster, immediately began to transform their teaching, inventing new strategies. There are children who have been involved in the exploration of a different way of learning, in which the teacher first got involved, without being afraid of measuring himself on a territory never explored.
Rethink teaching
Jean Piaget wrote: “The main objective of the school is to create men who are able to do new thingsand not simply repeat what other generations have done ».
There has been a lot of talk and for too long to rethink the school, rethink teaching, and Here is an opportunity to upset and unhinge a system which needs innovation, not in content, but in methods.
The children are all at home: they potentially have an entire laboratory always available to them. The teachers could start from the experience to introduce or deepen any topic. Because it is true that there are teachers who immediately started the online lessons, but many of them simply transferred to a video what they did in the classroom. And this is not distance teaching. Rethinking teaching now means leaving the usual patterns, leaving the cards and books and entering each child’s house. Enter the kitchen and study, for example, the equivalences using the scale and flour.
Just visit the site of the “Reggio Emilia Approach” to take some inspiration, or dive into the books of Maria Montessori to rediscover how much everyday life teaches. What is certain is that, now, parents and teachers should be pushed to look for an alliance.
I think we all had the time to understand what is happening to us, now It remains to be agreed on how to continue together, at the utmost respect for the childto find that, despite all its limits, distance teaching also has potential.
The only aspect that is not replaceable and that is missing from all children is being together. Laughing, playing, joking, combining some pranches and then being taken.
Distance teaching will never be able to recreate the relationship, which is an essential element for the growth of the individual.
