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The school, thanks to the passion and commitment of teachers, operators and managers, despite being affected by the various structural and organizational complexities, in September regained its breath and reopened its doors: an exciting image and still alive in memory of all.
But it did not last long, the difficult days have returned, the pandemic has arrogantly resumed to involve all our vital dimensions. Some schools have closed again and we begin to talk about Distance Education which, for adolescents, is already partially implemented, according to individual territorial realities. It is natural to feel anger, a sense of defeat, and discouragement, but we must not give room for resignation and, regardless of personal opinions and ideologies, we must strongly reiterate that the absolute priority, in this critical phase, is the young students. our future. . It is up to us, the school and care professionals, to take care of them as best we can.
Recent statistics and various field investigations have provided very worrying figures regarding the increase in early school leaving, situations of psychological distress and the increase in learning difficulties. We have heard dramatic testimonies from parents of diverse students who have felt abandoned and lonely and who have reported terrible cognitive regressions in their children. The causes or faults of all this are now known to all, but it cannot and must not happen anymore.
The pandemic, in recent months, has dramatically highlighted the long-standing critical problems of the Italian school, for too long eluded by successive governments: large classrooms, inadequate spaces and often crumbling structures, lack of technology teachers or professors fewer humanists, total educational delegation between the school and the family, little recognition of the socio-educational role of the teaching profession. Yet an unspoken and shared ethical code It has always moved every teacher who, by vocation or strong sense of duty, has always tried to make up for deficiencies, even macroscopic ones. The desire to create conditions of well-being in students has always prevailed, at least in most cases, waiting for the institutions to be aware that the school is the heart of a country.
A few months ago, the DaD caught us off guard, provoking various and even legitimate reactions. But now we know, and if it is to represent the way of doing school, we must make sure we live it proactively so that it is as effective as possible. It is the duty to educate adults Guarantee both the right to education and training of our young people and the safeguarding of public education..
Luca Toselli, academic and new media researcher of the early university and television distance education of the 1990s, has just published a very interesting book that seems to come to the aid just in time: Distance learning works, if you know how to do it. With a light style and flat language, the author states that during the pandemic DaD represented “A friendly side, an ally in the indispensable need for a human relationship, not physical but capable of giving meaning to our daily life, which has become sad and heavy” (page 9). What could we have done differently? Thus, instead of pointing out the shortcomings and defects of DDA, the author highlights its potential and offers it to us as an effective resource for an educating society in transformation. Through his personal experience as a transformative teacher (that is how I like to think of it) and the passion of a student of the subject, he encourages you to experiment with other teaching in keeping with the times. His book is the story of a pedagogical journey where the protagonists are students, teachers and families, all in the same boat, as they say, despite the asymmetry of roles. As an enthusiastic traveler, Luca Toselli reconstructs the stages of his teaching career who practiced DDA with conviction and pleasure, illustrating the means and tools, methods and development rules, possible answers to problems that arise from time to time. In short, he invites us to travel by offering us a guide and leaving the window open to other creative possibilities.
Your book reads like a book of humanized technology, a particularly noticeable aspect. Technologies, in fact, should not be demonized, they are an integral part of an evolutionary path of humanity, but they do not have and cannot have supremacy over humanity, which makes existence itself precious. Our young people should be educated in this, including through distance learning, according to the author.
The constant accompaniment of the adult, the example that becomes an educational transfer are fundamental aspects. Toselli, then, is very aware of the difficulties of our children to show themselves in all their reality: small apartments, siblings to follow, a daily life that can be tight. And that is why it suggests appropriate strategies to protect privacy and your own space, but also to learn to care “From the framework that often reveals more to us than the expressions on our faces” (page 76) and helps us create “The” scenery of one’s own privacy ” (p. 78), also proposing an interesting reflection and argument about the very concept of privacy in our time. The author declares himself more than convinced that the DAD represents a valid means to satisfy the need for relationship, look, face, when the present physically is not possible but only if you know how to do it.
In addition, its considerations and operational proposals are very interesting in relation to complex pedagogical issues and those that are currently being debated and investigated, such as: the evaluation of students, the training of teachers in the use of a pedagogy of the question (the questions backwards). Dewey already invited to acquire “the art of questioning what is the art of guiding learning, whose operation is not established by fixed and rigid rules.” And again, how can we not think about the pedagogy of legitimate questions? For our author, what really matters is the training of students in critical thinking, especially since we live in an extremely social present.
What is striking, page after page, is the spirit with which the author has practiced Distance Education. A journey of responsibility and knowledge, multifaceted teaching strategies and dialogue, experimentation and fun. Now that I think about it, “entertain” comes from the Latin de-verto, which literally means change path to take a new one. It is a verb of movement, because you have to have the courage to leave your job to go somewhere else. (M. Balzano, 2019).
If DaD has to be, let’s try, with a smile, wanting to experience the new, wanting to ask questions, with the curiosity of discovery but, above all with the intention of not leaving any of our students behind, like the author does that “At the school overturned by the lokdown – writes- we had a great time: finally free to plan, to talk and listen to each other … never so distant, never so close “ (page 13). Families included.
Toselli does not deny having encountered difficulties and relates them faithfully in the text. Whether they are technical, family, emotional or affective problems, according to the author it is essential that a teacher (coach, or activator, or animator – page 73) be able to listen and observe, even through the screen.
The DaD seems to be for Luca Toselli “a desirable ally of classroom teaching “ because it is a new time, something else, not to be lived as a contingent remedy, but as a pedagogical practice, the result of research, training and study. It is also necessary to acquire a certain skill, it is undeniable.
We all want the present school to continue being “the school”: a beautiful word, capable of writing a good and significant part of our biographies. Of course, you will have to renew your dress, but without losing the precious original meaning of scholè even with openness to the new and experimentation.
I’m convinced that this humanized technology book it can represent a guide for self-training and a useful methodological tool for all teachers, now for the health emergency, now in various other contexts and situations. We think of hospitalized students!
You have to try, get involved, even with the hope that the screams of the students, the corridors of the schools full of life, will soon come true again … with a lot of knowledge, experience, more skills and … without losing any pupil, not even one.
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