in Rome no clearance. And the protest mounts – iodonna

THEOn September 15, school begins in Rome. But not for everyone, because the 17 children enrolled in sixth grade at IMontessori-Pini Comprehensive Institute, they don’t know where to go. The Lazio regional school office, directed by Dr. Anna Paola Sabatini, has in fact denied the clearance. The other schools in the neighborhood have no place. And so, the first experimentation in a Montessori medium in Rome, inserted in the national one which is led by the IC Riccardo Massa of Milan, remains lame: only a seventh grade class, then that’s it. The method was rejected right where it was born: one of the three complexes of Montessori-Pini, in fact, stands where Maria Montessori had created, in 1907, her first Casa dei Bambini. A mockery.

We ask Daniela Dabbene, primary school teacher of the CI and president of the Roman Montessori Association to explain how it could have happened. «Last year we inaugurated our first middle school class with the Montessori method. There were 15 children, but we know that it takes time and dialogue to overcome any perplexity between parents », she says. “For enrollment in the first year in the 2023/24 school year, we had some difficulties at the beginning, but in July we reached 17 children, i.e. only 1 less than the expected limit of 18. However, the go-ahead was denied us, with the justification of budget problems. Specifically, of “very limited personnel resources attributed to the province of Rome”».

The result is that, at this point, Montessori-Pini is left with only an isolated second class in middle school. Nor can we think of adding a “traditional” one, given that the entire IC – in the three complexes of the African district, Villa Paganini and San Lorenzo – follows the Montessori method. «We are unique, in all of Italy there is no reality like ours: almost 1000 primary school children who follow the same method. An experience of incomparable value».

Media Montessori: an experience also of inclusiveness

To solve the budget problems, the school made a proposal: “We would have given up the 36 hours of strengthening to move the budget to the sixth grade”, continues Dabbene. Instead, there was no response. Among the 17 “suspended” children, there are 3 unaccompanied foreign minors, reported by the Community of Sant’Egidio, and a disabled girl. What will they do?

Meanwhile the parents of the IC have mobilized, organized a protest demonstration, and wrote a open letter to Giorgia Meloni and the Minister of Education and Merit Giuseppe Valditara, They wanted to underline that «the school represents a national symbol abroad, a destination for researchers and scholars from all over the world. But above all and simply it is a school where learning and growth is a moment of joy and sharing» and it is in the name of inclusiveness, because «it has opened up the possibility for young people fleeing wars, through the humanitarian corridors, to find a place of serenity in which to grow and integrate». THE

Finally, the parents ask «to be inspired by the sense of responsibility and autonomy that the institutions have already demonstrated with the activation of sixth grade for the 2022-2023 school year», against those “bureaucratic constraints” that are shattering a dream.

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