TIt’s very easy to criticize the school: the mediocre results in international tests, the dropout rate that is still too high, teachers often devoted to face-to-face teaching which is no longer feasible today, full time for few and almost only in the North. Nevertheless, we should remember how it was before. With this warning it opens Don’t shoot up the school (Solferino) of two journalists from CourierGianna Fregonara and Orsola Riva. The authors wrote their beautiful book as if it were an investigation, with a great wealth of data and testimonies. THEn addition, you can feel the passion behind it. And trust which, despite everything, is reserved for an institution that is, and has been, at the center of our lives.
Orsola Riva and Gianna Fregonara, journalists from Corriere della Sera, are the authors of Don’t shoot at school (Solferino).
«It’s not true that yesterday’s school was better than today’s», begins Gianna Fregonara. Certain nostalgias – the teacher like a mother, the apron with a bow – are better kept to oneself. In 1963, at the start of the single middle school, out of 100 first grade children only 40 reached eighth grade and 10 graduated from high school. «Today, net of the 12 percent dropout rate, we can say that everyone goes to school. The great result of mass education has been achieved.” And this despite the fact that Italy was far behind: at the beginning of the 1980s, only half of the children enrolled in high school. A delay that is filled in decades, not in a short time.
«The reality is that many things are asked of schools to fill what other institutions don’t do», continues the author. «But this enormous system, which involves 9 million people, from children to adults, remains, as we write in the first chapter, “a model to be defended: it is open to all, it is inclusive, it is free and remains competitive with the private system which has taken over in other countries».
That said, there are problems, and the two journalists tackle them one by one. «The calendar, the anachronistic lesson timetable, the homework that is useless as it is assigned. Full-time primary school is the norm in the North and in the big cities, while in Sicily only one child in six goes to school in the afternoon.” Another is that of teaching: although the programs no longer exist since 2010, not everyone has noticed. Due to unpreparedness, laziness, fear of getting lost in unknown territories, teachers still rely on the old and dear lessons of the past, frontal, notional. Which, however, has little appeal for today’s kids. There are many experiments underway – from the Finnish method to the Montessori method applied to middle school – “but they risk getting lost if there is no global vision”.
The cover of the book by Gianna Fregonara and Orsola Riva.
Let’s think about the unfortunate wheelchairs launched – it must be said – in the time of Covid, amidst a thousand controversies. Net of the situation at the time, they could have been used for alternative teaching. But no. Other examples? There teacher training, never structured in a definitive way, the lack of autonomy of schools, the Pnrr, on which many question marks remain. «65 percent of children who go to school will do a job that doesn’t exist today», continues Fregonara. “What is needed then is not knowledge but the ability to continue learning.”
In this situation, what should be the first challenge to face? «The decrease in the number of students can be a great opportunity to invest the resources that are freed up in the school. Smaller classes, more relaxed times, a more welcoming school for everyone: this is what is needed”, concludes the author.
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