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How do you do when more than 70 percent of children do not attend school because families fear Covid-19 infections and keep their children at home? This is a serious problem that has emerged in recent days in many districts of Naples and of which Eugenio Tipaldi, director of the Integral Institute “D’Aosta-Scura”, located in the Quartieri Spagnoli, a very difficult area of the city, inhabited by poor families.
Families facing the concrete risk of multiplying infections that would materialize if children fell ill at school, given that in their often narrow and low-rise houses, but also in the busy streets of cheap fruit and meat stalls that attract so many people from other neighborhoods really struggle to guarantee a minimum space; they have firmly decided to keep the children at home.
“It is better to have an ignorant but living child – say the parents – than one not educated but dead.” And there are many of those parents, given that these days only 28 percent of the children attended the first elementary class of the school that Tipaldi runs, yesterday it was 21 of the 73, to be precise.
All the others at home, and one imagines them in front of the television or video games because you cannot imagine that these families have the resources to pay for a private teacher.
Tipaldi would also have found the solution: proceed with mixed teaching, that is, with the lessons taught by the teachers in class with those present, while the many absent children could follow those same lessons from home with distance learning through a teleconference connection. Especially since the families are already equipped with loaned tablets for their previous use and thanks to which they were able to follow the lessons after the governor of Campania, De Luca, closed the schools last October 15, when there were not so many infections while it has reopened them for these children in recent days, when infections have increased and Campania has become a red zone, leaving families disoriented, who have now decided not to send the children to school.
The mixed education solution, which is also provided for by law, has already been adopted throughout Italy and also in Naples, but it is contemplated only for situations where part of the students are at home due to the division of classes , to ensure distance, or why quarantined. The other cases, like the one proposed by Tipaldi, are not foreseen.
Therefore, according to the school authorities consulted by the rector during a videoconference yesterday, it would be out of the question to proceed with a mixed teaching method such as the one proposed. An answer that the Neapolitan executive did not like, which now relaunches “so that at the top of politics it is understood that a problem that involves more than half of the children cannot be ignored. Families have already said that children cannot They will send them to school. ” . What are we doing? Did we send out social workers and then turn them down in June for absences? “
So what do we do, director Eugenio Tipaldi?
“The problem is that in these neighborhoods people are afraid and many do not want to send to school, let us also send the police and social workers. For them, health is more important than the right to school. The doctor at the Cotugno hospital said that ours is the neighborhood with the highest risk of contagion. The houses are small, even the people live in the lowlands, if one is infected, all the others are infected, the distancing is not guaranteed even in the open air, there is the exit of the funicular, the fruit and meat stalls that attracts many people from other districts, there is a bustle of workers who go downtown on foot near via Toledo, one of the main streets of Naples. So the inhabitants feel these contagions around them and do not send their children to school. The scientific community itself is divided on whether the school is a place of contagion or, as the minister says, has zero risk ”.
But is it really a problem that only affects the Spanish Quarter?
“Look, this morning in the videoconference with the councilor of the Municipality of Naples, Annamaria Palmieri, and with the director of USR Campania, Luisa Franzese, it was thought that it was a problem in this neighborhood and instead it turned out that in the entire city of Naples there is little frequency. Schools are closed and are in distance education, so we go to kindergartens and first primary schools, while second to fifth and intermediate schools must return to class on November 30: the 29th unit crisis will confirm whether or not you stay in the red zone. What puzzled me in the videoconference is that there was unanimity that we must stick to the rules. “The school authorities did not appreciate their idea” They said that the school It is compulsory and if the parents will not be sent to school, the complaints and the intervention of social workers will proceed. This position is very bureaucratic, I do not understand it. It does not look at the problems. When the parents do not s they send, what do I do, report them? “
What numbers are we talking about?
“For the first grade I have a presence of 28 percent, 21 children of the 73 present. Most stay at home. In some class they don’t want to send anyone ”.
But the law is clear
“And thanks to this bureaucratic interpretation of the law, what should I do? Do I report to parents? Did we miss children in June for absences? But this is the majority of children who are left without an education. The law tells us that we cannot do distance education because we are in presence. For many managers and teachers it is also convenient, the salary is guaranteed, but I ask myself the problem and place it at the top of politics. It cannot be ignored that the majority do not send their children to school. The paradox is that I have to leave the teacher in class without doing anything because we have to respect the law and we cannot do distance education because I risk being denounced. All this seems truly paradoxical to me. If this is normal, it means that we are in a country where bureaucracy prevails and instead we must be flexible and meet needs. Years ago when the pinworm epidemic occurred, worms that children easily catch because they don’t wash their hands, it was very annoying, let alone a deadly disease. At that time I was attacked because they had not done the disinfestation that, among other things, I had requested but is not planned, and much less if a Covid infection occurs: I am sure that the entire school will have to be closed. It opens again and as soon as the first infections begin it is not possible to close a single class but due to the panic the entire school will have to be closed “
It is not the only paradox
“It is not. If you close the school, you can do distance education, on the other hand if you only have one or four children present you cannot do it, it does not seem rational to me and the politicians should give this flexibility to the schools. They said that the autonomy of The schools do not allow us to activate the father but we can only intervene in the school hours. So to get to know the users I ask the minister and the president of the Region to let us do the mixed father: I feel the need because we are talking about the right to education but then in reality they are denied, if there are so many children, that is the majority, do not attend. We are in a neighborhood with educational poverty, fear dominates where there is little knowledge. But here we are denying education to children, with This strict interpretation of the law. They also say that mixed education cannot be done because the public school does not offer individual education but in wealthy neighborhoods there is education for parents or individual education. or a fee: in a poor neighborhood like this, families do not have the ability to pay a fee. private teacher and therefore if you don’t give them distance education you will marginalize the children ”.
It has been said many times that the father creates discrimination since poor families do not have the technologies to follow the lessons from a distance
“Look, when there was the confinement, many families did not have the means. This year we loaned the tablets for their use and the families were able to continue and the children continued until the next day, when the school reopened. But now that they have these means we cannot give them to them because the law does not allow it ”.
Another paradox
“We hope to have an answer from politics. We had a good start, we had divided the classes and ensured the distance between the desks and people had trusted them, so there was that disorientation that I denounced. The president of the Region closes schools when there are few infections and reopens them when there is a red zone. Now parents no longer trust and are afraid. The problem is that we have so much contradiction between school decisions in the sense that the government makes one decision, the governors another, and even De Luca has closed the schools when they were open in Italy and has now reopened them for children and the first degrees. of the elementary school on November 25 with Ordinance n. 90 that gave mayors the power to decide. So at the national level, one thing is said, the Region says another, and the mayors another. Hence the chaos and disorientation of parents “
But, would the teachers be willing to carry out a mixed teaching, with the students present and with others at a distance because their parents kept them?
“With an incentive you can find the formulas. This year we will not make plans, so with the money saved from the Institute Fund we could financially incentivize the teachers summoned to carry out a double activity. Also, primary school teachers are available to do so. They feel very responsible for the children who stay at home. An almost family relationship is created while the greatest resistance is the average: here there is greater opposition also due to the difficulty of doing so, so that the schedules are fixed. However, by giving incentives, you get a certain availability because doing two activities is fair that they be paid. Otherwise, the unions also end up going against us ”.
What do children who do not attend? How do the days go by? I know you keep in touch with families through Facebook.
“They are in front of the television or they are in front of a video game. I don’t think we are teaching with parents. Those who intend to make ends meet and certainly don’t have a culture to teach their children to read and write, nor can they afford a private teacher. At the end of all this, the differences and marginalization of these young people are accentuated. And if the school doesn’t save them, they can become future criminals. We’re a school located in a neighborhood where drugs are sold to survive “
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