Vaccines and Dad. How the School should reopen. Sister Anna Monia Alfieri speaks
Start Magazine conversation with Sister Anna Monia Alfieri on the reopening of schools
What do you think of the hypothesis of compulsory vaccines for teachers? More than 200,000 have not been vaccinated
Constitutionally it is not possible to constrain health, especially in the present phase of vaccine testing; it is therefore necessary to leverage the freedom that moves responsibility and therefore co-responsibility, with or without a vaccine and in the context of clear and coherent information, which has not always occurred. The teachers have noticed this and consequently are hesitating …
What were the consequences of the covid for the students?
The covid curve is currently – and is assumed to be stable – in decline, while that of cultural deprivation has soared and tends to worsen, especially in fragile areas of the country. The gap between the North and the South is increasingly marked, where there is a clear risk of an educational poverty that degenerates into an "educational catastrophe", according to the effective expression of Pope Francis. The underworld of all kinds takes advantage of it, drawing heavily on the labor of minors and young people deprived of culture and training for any professional activity. This is the antechamber of material poverty and therefore of the civil death of a country and a society.
How will school restart in September? Whose turn is it to arrange for it to reopen?
As Minister Bianchi rightly states , it is not just a matter for the Ministry or the Government. We all citizens must feel the urgency to restart the school, in the presence and seriously, for our children, throughout the national territory. It is absolutely necessary, otherwise they will not be able to repay the debt that now – if well used – saves us, but which in the future can destroy the economy of a stressed and ignorant nation. Consequently, while the Government, the Ministry and the school offices of the virtuous and organized Regions have not stopped working, and while the state and equal schools, with teachers and principals, are committed 24 hours a day to restarting schools with adequate safety and educational organizations, it is also necessary that the Parents, the Associations, the companies that manage the collateral services (eg transport) give their contribution of attention and assumption of responsibility.
Could you indicate an example of a “virtuous region”?
We are all committed to overcoming the nodes of September, starting with the capacity of the classrooms, to guarantee 100% restart in presence. Highly responsible and effective behavior is offered by the Regional School Office of Lombardy, which has launched a collection of data concerning the spaces for possible collaboration between state and private schools, between public management and private management, including parish realities, focusing on need to unite all the living forces of Lombard society. It is desirable that this happens throughout the country.
What will be the choices regarding DAD, Distance Learning?
It's a huge knot. If it apparently "saved" two school years, in reality it has contributed to accentuating the furrows between regions and areas of the country that are more and less developed from a technological point of view. The children of the South have been buried, in particular where the Authorities have left families "free" to send their children to school or not. They have been ruined and at home and at school, because neither one nor the other has done much. The idyll of the little girl sitting at the counter, on the lawn, intent on the PC, while her father's goats graze quietly in the context of an alpine valley, is unimaginable for large families struggling with cell phones, in a single room, without a PC, without scanner and printer, without adequate connection… So we act with a State-Regions conference, so that every Italian child, wherever he or she lives, has the right to learn and train in the school community. Nobody remains at the mercy of their Governor.
What are the possible solutions?
It is necessary to try to fill this cultural and educational gap, as the Ministry is doing with the proposal of the Summer 2021 Plan and with the participation of those who have joined it with generosity and competence. In perspective, it is necessary to aim for an autonomous state public school which, if its autonomy is played well, will be able to demonstrate that it is the only way to recover children from the abyss.
It is also necessary to aim for a free equal public school for parents who have the right to choose it: with the budget law, families will be able to access funds that will allow them to exercise their constitutional right to freedom of educational and training choice, today in part present only in the North. The tragedy: almost all the public schools in the South closed, training is directed towards a single direction, devoid of the healthy stimulus of competition. The degradation will get worse.
One last question: how will the lack of teachers and the "carousel of professorships" be resolved
With the census of teachers and chairs available. The shortage of staff is due to the age-old question of non-existent jobs, because no engineer or lawyer in Italy has the guarantee, once graduated, of finding a permanent permanent position near the house or in the same city … precarious and exiled are the fruit of this deceptive illusion, fed by the trade unions for at least thirty years. Another dramatic aspect is the delay in the holding of competitions for professorships and qualifiers, which damages the entire public school, equal and state-owned. Thousands of teachers were fired in June and hired in September, for years, because they were unable to complete the professional process, with inhumane repercussions on their family life. Who talks about it?
So full speed ahead, towards the budget law and the recovery of the country. Without culture, even the Colosseum will be a mountain of old bumpy stones… good for a photo with the fake gadget.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/vaccini-e-dad-come-deve-riaprire-la-scuola-parla-suor-anna-monia-alfieri/ on Fri, 09 Jul 2021 08:09:32 +0000.