School Archivi - Centro Didattica Talenti

Orientation routes

Centro Didattica Talenti — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 10:22:00 +0000

How do you choose high school? It seems that it is still identified with an “old” modality, which reflects a vision of class and bourgeois school.

The Italian “Gentile reform”, in 1923, distinguishes secondary schools into four types: the five-year gymnasium, which gave access to the classical or scientific high school; the three-year technical institute, followed by four years of higher technical institute; the seven-year teaching institution for future teachers; the complementary school, at the end of which it was not possible to enrol in any other school.
During the Fascist period, the choice of high school depended on the student’s abilities, as well as on family values. If a pupil did not succeed in school, he had to follow a cruel fate. Today, however, with the variety of secondary schools, the selection criterion should not concern the grades collected in the middle school. Still today, however, there is a common tendency to make your child choose the school on the basis of performance: if it is low, vocational school; if it is medium, technical school and, finally, if it is high, high school.

The automaticity of this mechanism does not consider the dreams, interests or talents of our children.

Suppose that a boy or a girl has an excellent performance in all subjects and that the mother wants the son to do the scientific high school (“because he must become a doctor”); the grandmother, instead, wants the grandson to do the classical high school, as there is conviction (of fascist type) that is the only school to offer a solid preparation, the boy feels deeply confused and disoriented. After 5 meetings I realized that his talent was about language learning. Why not choose a language school? The answer I heard from his mother (a few weeks ago) was: “my son is wasted on a language high school”. There remains the conviction that secondary school must be chosen on the basis of the abilities and will of parents or grandparents, hiding and obscuring the interests and talents of the children.

Today there are plenty of secondary schools (see here) that offer kids a curriculum to develop their skills and fulfill their dreams. I think it is really harmful to keep forcing kids to choose a secondary school on the basis of their parents’ or grandparents’ dreams.

For these reasons I propose a path of identification of inclinations, interests and talent so that the secondary school is identified to fulfill a desire of the boy/girl, in order to avoid early school leaving due to the inconsistency between the inclinations of the child/ a and the expectations of parents or grandparents.

by Martina Brazzolotto

16 January 2021

For more info write to martinabrazzolotto@gmail.com

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Course of PHILOSOPHY for children

Centro Didattica Talenti — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 10:25:51 +0000

The study of philosophy offers many advantages, as well as allowing the theoretical study of some philosophers and its historical period, broadens the perspectives on the same theme, develops critical thinking and tolerance and contributes to the growth of personal identity.
The PHILOSOPHY course is aimed at all teenagers, in particular those who attend middle school.
The meetings for January 2021 are:

-Saturday 9 at 16:30
-Saturday 16 at 16:30
-Saturday 23 at 11:00
-Saturday 30 at 16:30

Each meeting is an hour and will be held online.
It is also possible to participate in a single meeting, or two or three or all.
For more info and costs write to martinabrazzolotto@gmail.com

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HOMEWORK FOR THE HOLIDAYS: training or enrichment?

Centro Didattica Talenti — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 09:31:42 +0000

If the school world seems to be in favor of assigning homework during the summer holidays, some parents do not approve of this mode of teaching. The reasons that encourage teachers to suggest summer tasks, often through the execution of cards or books, are various: review the contents carried out during the school year, avoid that some concepts and procedures can be forgotten, promote a sense of duty in pupils. Parents, opposed to this practice, however, think that the performance of the tasks is only a “torture” for the children and for themselves, especially when children or young people refuse to perform the tasks.

Both perspectives, although they lead to completely opposite positions, seem to have the same basic idea: the tasks would be a way to train pupils to perform school-type tasks. Deliveries are often very tight and the solution is unique. The mode therefore provides for the training of a pupil able to solve certain school exercises, sometimes proposing the same methods for several exercises. In pupils with surplus equipment (gifted children) or in more creative subjects this mode causes a deep boredom, as well as a discomfort and a disappointment, to the point of resulting in refusal to carry out tasks and trigger quarrels in the family.

In educational and pedagogical terms, why should a pupil do summer homework?

The period of suspension of school activities during the summer is about three months, time that is usually used by children, families and teachers to rest and spend time with their loved ones. In spite of this, usually tasks are assigned that follow the “traditional” activities that are used in frontal teaching at school. The activities in most cases concern exercises to be completed, discriminating some words on the basis of two or three grammatical concepts given, solving calculations or problems where there is already written (in the title of the chapter) which operation will be used to find the solution. These examples show that tasks currently pursue an end of mechanical “training” of certain specific school skills. It is well known that learning takes place only if the pupil is actively involved, through engaging activities and through a genuine task. If we think of an active teaching, where the student is made to participate, where the goal is not the mere execution, but the ability to learn and solve problems and create new solutions, then we think that it is better to address some tasks that can “enrich”.
In the scientific literature we speak of “enrichment activities”, that is “enrichment activities”, through which we tend to motivate students to pursue the aforementioned objectives. If I think of pupils with extra equipment and/or high potential

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