Education Reform: Italian Group Shows Americans How It's Done
by Bruce Deitrick Price
The starting point was their anguish at finding that children in public schools are beset by many psychological problems that were not historically associated with elementary school. In fact, Italian children were replicating all the bad experiences that the United States has gone through for the last 70 years. Children weren't learning to read or do arithmetic. They exhibit weird (and often illusionary) psychological problems – in particular, ADHD, learning disabilities, and dyslexia.
Italians had the sense that psychiatry was meddling in and indeed perverting education. Behaviors that had always been considered normal for children were suddenly given technical names and complicated remediations, including drugs.
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Do read the whole piece - lots of food for thought!The good news is that toxic problems in Italian schools have awakened many of the country's best people. They want to know how they got into this mess. They want to rethink education, improve methods, and stop the labeling of children.
A few months ago, Pensare Oltre had a conference, attended by 100 people in Milan, to address the difficulties in education. The name of the conference was "The School Rethought—Let the Value of Knowledge Flourish Again."
The distinguished participants included Senator Josefa Idem (Education Commission of the Senate); Enza Blundo (vice president, Bicameral Commission on Childhood); Valentina Aprea (education councilor of the Lombardy Region); Luisa Piarulli (president of ANPE, National Association of Italian Educationalists); and Professor Ivano Spano (professor of sociology, University of Padua). Most of them presented a paper.
The good news for the future is that Pensare Oltre plans to prepare and test more effective teaching methods, with a big emphasis on phonics and traditional ways of teaching mathematics. There is a growing consensus in Italy that education went in the wrong direction. Now it must be straightened out, and these people hope to do this vital work.
Here we have a wonderful sign of hope in education. These Italians are thinking big and using their prestige in the battle. We desperately need a group like this in the United States.