School, the psychologist: “The vote matters less than keeping the desire to learn alive”

“It was a more difficult school year than the previous one for teachers, children and parents. The important thing is not the grades, but that the desire to go back to school has remained ». Emanuela Confalonieri, development and education psychologist, professor at the Catholic University of Milan, he says it as a certainty. The school year that ends all over Italy this week was more complicated than the previous one from many points of view.

«Last year was experienced as exceptional and, like all our reactions in the first lockdown, it brought out a great spirit of adaptation.

This year instead started with the assumption that even distance learning, in case there was a need to use it, should not have lived as something exceptional: there had to be trained people, schools and teachers ready with a different planning and organizational capacity».

Many schools have managed to do this, many others have not and this has been seen from April onwards, when the classes have returned more permanently to the classrooms. “The time, especially for high school, was used for checks and interrogations. It means that in the previous months it was not possible to find good methods of remote assessment », explains Professor Confalonieri, who focuses more on learning than on assessment.

“Is it educational and learning to ask them about something they already know they might not know? In the non-closing years, the teaching staff could decide to know that a class arrives with missing skills to manage and recover in the summer and at the start of the following year and use the months of April, May and June to build and retrieve the class group. This could also be an opportunity to review the evaluation methods ».

In this year the priority could and should have been understanding how the students were doing as well as focusing on what they had learned. «Based on the situation of the class», Emanuela Confalonieri adds, «it could have been privileging the aspect of motivation, making peace with learning and knowledge. Without forgetting that teachers have really worked twice as much this year, but there is the risk of finding young people in September, teenagers in particular, strongly demotivated ».

Even in the next few years, while returning permanently to the classroom, repercussions will be seen. This year it will leave traces on the boys who will have to meet again. «They will have to do it with the help of the school which has proved to be a context of fundamental growth and training. Being on and off made it even more important to the kids. This period has given back a role to the school, it has been rediscovered as a place of growth. Now it is the school that has to work above all on its being a social and relational place because learning comes together with socialization. To this we must add the possible best use of technologies in an integrated digital teaching ».

This is why it should not be counted as a wasted year. “There are aspects that must lead us to reflect on possible changes and innovations. Above all, students must not perceive in teachers and parents that it was a wasted year. For them it was a year of school, a year of life that we must try to close as best we can. There is the possibility of rejection, but it must be used taking into account what was the path made at a distance and in presence ».