Sicily, parents and teachers separate from distance education

To be satisfied with a couple of hours of lessons at school or to follow the entire program from home in front of the computer? Sitting all morning with a mask on your face on a two-seater bench adapted to the Covid emergency or resigning yourself to distance education? The world of schools in the face of rising coronavirus infections and intermittent lessons is divided into the possibility of turning to distance learning, at least during the last years of high school. And indeed, since the beginning of the school year, 80 percent of secondary schools in Sicily have started rotating students between face-to-face and distance lessons and continue in this way.

“Being a dad during the last years of secondary school would be the solution to guarantee everyone the right to study – says Rosana Rizzo, Literature teacher at Duca degli Abruzzi secondary school in Palermo – integrated teaching with half of the class present and half connected from home does not work because the connection is not maintained. And this is the case in many schools. We already have reduced hours for organizational reasons, then the connection is triggered. So it’s not school. “In Modica, Stefano Marina, mathematics teacher and physics at Verga school, despite the difficulties, focuses on presence: “I teach mathematics and physics and I am open to new technologies. But these are other things, teaching is done in presence. At a distance only you can integrate work in the classroom ”.

Starting today, the Cannizzaro scientific institute in Palermo will also increase the proportion of students at home. If until now it was 2-3 per class, now it will be 40 percent. The director decided this after the requests of a good part of the parents who fear contagion, but also because after the 5 cases of positivity and so many classes in quarantine, she had to deal with the difficulties of communicating with the ASP and other institutions. “The single-seater benches never arrived, nor the additional rooms, the protagonists were left to their own devices, it is an ungovernable situation,” says Anna Maria Catalano, head of the Cannizzaro. Tomorrow and Friday, the extraordinary school and university council will choose the way forward, also because a large part of the parents of the first classes, instead, ask that the lessons be present as long as possible.
“I am firmly convinced, especially in this initial period of a new course of study, given that my son has just started high school, that face-to-face teaching is precious for our children, for their growth and also for the opportunity. at a time like this, to create positive and constructive interpersonal relationships with both teachers and classmates, ”says Giovanna Nozzetti, who has a son in Cannizzaro.
Some parents wrote a letter to the director Catalano asking him “to keep teaching especially in the presence of the first classes unless the epidemiological situation deteriorates.”

“At most, if there are cases particularly at risk, you can decide to protect them by implementing distance learning just for them,” says Marcello Longo, father of another Cannizzaro child. The Musco de Catania artistic, musical and dance institute remains firm, where all the boys are still present. “The children follow a series of workshops that would be difficult to do remotely – says director Cristina Cascio – We hope to continue like this. Few parents expressed concern, many prefer face-to-face teaching. Dad’s results are not comparable to those of face-to-face teaching. Instead, they are ready to go to the daddy on the carpet if the situation precipitated the boys of the state institute Vito Fazio Allmayer de Alcamo. “Every day a third of the class follows at a distance and two thirds in attendance”, says Vito Piccichè, director of the institute.