For anyone who still has any doubts about the damage and waste which have affected Italian students with the distance teaching, I suggest a careful reading of the results of a field research carried out by theI became established, the research body that is responsible, among other things, for verifying learning levels and assessing students' knowledge. The painting which emerges from this investigation it's just scary.
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DISTANCE LEARNING: THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS
In general, we come to the conclusion that one in two students is unprepared. And almost half of the kids who did the Maturity, after the period of homeschooling, I am able to answer questions that should be part of a learning program for the third year of middle school, or at most for the first year of high school. A nice dive backwards. 44 percent of children who graduate from the third year of middle school do not have the minimum skills in Italian and 51 percent are in the same situation with respect to mathematics. Needless to say, to complete the picture, the data are more weighty, on average by about 10 points, in the southern regions where distance learning worked intermittently and with several slowdowns.
THE DAMAGE OF THE PANDEMIC ON SCHOOLS
Unfortunately, the substantial decline in Italian schools, at all levels, due to the pandemic, comes after years in which learning outcomes were already poor, also due to outdated teaching methods and poor teacher training. But with these numbers there is a generation of students who have burned a couple of years of school, and they'll need to catch up quickly if they intend to continue their studies and acquire more solid training to enter the workforce. So far, the learning impact of distance learning has been so damaging, something many, even within the educational system, have foolishly underestimated. Then there's the rest.
HOW MANY ARE EXCLUDED FROM DISTANCE LEARNING?
Let's start from the assumption that 8 percent of students in schools of all levels in Italy are left excluded from any form of distance learning, and this percentage rises to 23 percent for students with some disability. What does this mean? Simply that Italian schools are increasingly educating and at the same time becoming increasingly unequal: fuels disadvantages and social distances, instead of shortening them. Distance learning had already started a few months ago when the Foundation of Sant'Egidio, with a field investigation, discovered that 61 percent of school students from the Roman suburbs hadn't even had one hour of lessons.
MORE SCHOOL DROPOUTS WITH DISTANCE LEARNING
Another sign of a more unjust school is in thesurge in school dropoutsAccording to a survey by theIpsos, among secondary school students, in 28 percent of classes it would have happened at least one abandonmentIf we apply this percentage to the general population, we have approximately 34 thousand young people who have decided to drop out of school. On the other hand, the reports of abandon they have been multiplying in juvenile prosecutors' offices: in Naples, for example, only in a month and a half 900 pupils they were reported because they decided to leave school, compared to an annual average that did not exceed 400 students.
THE DIFFICULTIES OF FAMILIES
Distance learning was then a nightmare for families, both from an organizational and psychological point of view. higher bill, with the boys, they paid for it women, more waste and more discriminationMany had to give up work: they could no longer cope with the grueling pace of work combined with caring for a few children, present at home all day. Fewer women at work also meant less income for many families, and therefore a general impoverishment in the lower middle class bands, where the salary of a single family member is generally not enough to guarantee a satisfactory standard of living for the whole family.
PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE
As for psychological damage, a study on family life carried out in 5 continents and 72 countries around the world, by the Hamad Bin Khalifa University of Qatar, gave the following results: in Europe 70 out of 100 young people have suffered from anxiety, and the disease has increased in severity where families are larger and home spaces are smaller. Small homes, with the inability to separate study and work spaces, have created further hardship in the family life of entire generations of young people.
Distance learning has suddenly destroyed the entire system of relationships that underpins school and represents an essential component of it. Horizontal relationships have been completely lost., between students, and vertically, with teachers. School also serves this purpose: to build human relationships, which are made of glances, of contacts, of physical and human closeness. And not of conversations in front of a PC or with a smartphone. A vertical relationship with the teacher is essential for successful learning and for engaging students with the subject, especially when it seems very difficult. Each of us has a teacher we remember as crucial to our academic education, a teacher who shaped our lives as students. Who will these kids remember after almost two years of lockdown? And how will they remember their teachers?
TECHNOLOGY AT SCHOOL
In the school of distance learning the paw of the technology took another step forward. And it becomes increasingly dominant in the entire youth universe, with all the implications, the risks and the resulting weaknesses. The computer controls every type of human relationship, and Mr. Google provides the illusion of having an answer, and therefore prepared, for every question. In the pretense of a new form of participation and connection, in reality it does nothing but isolate. More stressed, more fearful, more alone: these are the children of distance learning.
THE BENEFITS OF DAD
The only comforting element, now that we have a clearer picture of the damage that has accumulated in the school system with the pandemic, consists in the fact that finally there are the resources, a significant portion of the European funds earmarked specifically for responses to the coronavirus, for radical interventions, and not the usual patches we've been applying for years. Now we're talking about schools with investments, not cuts. A school that won't waste a single cent of the incoming funds, and will have to use them primarily to enable students to make up for the losses of the last two school years. The school of the future will always have to be in person. Many hirings will be needed, especially among the teaching staff, and money will be needed to pay teachers better, at all levels. Teacher training will need to be improved, and by several notches, to bring them into line with the new training criteria and new standards. We will need to have safer schools and more welcoming. Bringing the school system back to the center of long-term government action, rather than a constant plugging of the emergency. Let's not hide it: it's a school that needs to be redoneStarting from the bottom and with the awareness that without good training, available to all, we will never have a successful reconstruction of the country.
BACK TO SCHOOL: STORIES, IDEAS, AND HELPFUL TIPS
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