School more open

Prepare teachers, even with compulsory courses, for innovative forms of teaching; affirm some distance learning as a new opportunity, also for student group work, to hear and discuss opinions outside the school on contemporary issues; graft technological contents and methods into existing disciplines by connecting them to the students' lives as much as possible; select as groups of teachers, with students, transversal and complex topical issues to exercise their critical spirit, allowing themselves to be helped by the use of new technologies.

These are some of the teaching topics on which, after so many words and also so many stupid things said and written in the summer about the Italian school, it would be useful to become a widespread, continuous, transparent, urgent debate. Teachers and students should take possession of it (although attentive to external advice) who are the real protagonists.

From my direct experience, therefore not from scientific data, there are at least a third of teachers who have been experimenting for years on important and pressing issues their approach to "teaching" active and engaging. They must make a little more "noise". I would have an appeal to make to teachers of every school level and of every subject: in this school year, introduce in one part of the programs, in an interdisciplinary way, the theme that the children are experiencing: the complex and current theme of the coronavirus extended to the ¬th world of microorganisms.

I give you some reasons, but you certainly have many more in your head, starting from the individual and collective psycho ¬ logical data with which everyone is reacting to this coexistence with the virus. Even the psychological problems raised by the disease and the lockdown deserve specific studies and insights.

From the fear of getting sick, to stress, to anxiety, often linked to situations of individual isolation, uncertainty about work, about the future, concern for family members, loss of income ... up to forms of intolerance towards those who follow the rules or vice versa towards those who do not follow them (more difficult to make explicit visually); the open challenge of many people (even if in a minority) who prefer to consider Covid an invention to limit freedom. Based on the choices of many schools, we will be able to see if the journalist Piero Bianucci is right or not: "In the long term, there is only the school against the spread of bad information."

To help this reflection at school and in the family, among the many materials, you can use the educational book / notebook for free: CORONOVI¬RUS & C. written by Ecofficina - and updated in September 2020 - on purpose for didactic purposes to facilitate you the search for basic knowledge and insights.

To be downloaded at:

https://issuu.com/ecofficinasrl/docs/co¬ronavirus___c

 "In the long term, there is only school against the spread of bad information"

Carlo DeGiacomi
NP Ottobre 2020