Italy versus English Education System
Italy educated our children in a way this country never could
By Nina Keay
(Filed: 12/09/2004)
After three years of living in Italy and of having my own children educated there I began to understand why Italian children assiduously and enthusiastically seek education and English children, largely, do not.
Unemployment benefit, as we know it, is almost unheard of in modern Italy. When I lived there, it was 50p a day but it was only for those who had paid tax for a continuous 20 years. The prospect of poverty led Italians of all classes to worry obsessively about their futures. Since the 1950s married couples limited themselves to only one child which was all most parents could be reasonably sure of feeding and educating. Once this child reaches school age at six everything is done to make sure that he or she becomes sufficiently well-educated to be easily and lucratively employable.
Parents and teachers put enormous pressure on their children to achieve. School starts at 8am and finishes at around 1pm or 2pm every day including Saturdays. Homework - even for six-year-olds - is a nightly task. Sixteen-year-olds do at least four hours and holidays consist of a long break in the summer, a week at Christmas and two weeks at Easter. There are no half-term holidays.
In spite of the fact that there are also no playing fields or after-school activities, Italian children are almost invariably slim and active, thanks to the healthy Mediterranean diet, lots of local athletics clubs and masses of skiing.
The teachers never attempt to make lessons interesting: information is laid before students and they either take advantage of it or not. Italian schools, in common with most mainland European schools, have a stick-and-carrot system known, in Italy, as la bocciatura - literally the crash. This method of gaining the children"s undivided attention involves a "learn it or do it again" edict.
Every child in Italy is tested at the end of every academic year in every subject. Failure to reach a 60 per cent pass in a majority of subjects means the failing student must stay down ignominiously and do the year again with the successful pupils from the year before. Those who "pass" feel a sense of achievement second to none at that age and a determination to do well again.
Every child is given to understand at an early age, both by the state, the school and the parents, that the responsibility for its future lies fairly and squarely on itself. The emphasis is on the child"s duty to learn rather than the teacher"s duty to teach.
Visiting tourists may notice the lack of small gangs of baseball-capped hooligans and hoodies strolling around causing mischief - that"s because the children are at home doing their homework or are in coffee bars studying together in little groups.
Italian teenagers are approachable, polite, respectful and, above all, happy. They are the masters of their own fate and have been handed their own self-respect and dignity. And no Italian child moans, "I"m bored - I haven"t got anything to do!" He or she has plenty to do.
My own three children started school in England, finished their education in Italy and all opine that "God knows where we"d have finished up if we"d stayed in England. If you only knew the sort of trouble we were heading for in our comprehensive." I did - that"s why we left.
My children look back on their Italian school days with immense pleasure - they made wonderful friends with whom they have kept in touch ever since - they entered English universities and did well.
One son is a clinical psychologist, another works in the City and my daughter is happily married. All are bright, inquisitive, and all have a thorough and rounded education in the sciences, art, philosophy, music, literature and European history and are thus equipped not only for employment but for a satisfying inner intellectual life.
Another unexpected bonus is that they learned better English in their Italian schools than they would have done at school in Britain. Their Italian teachers taught them to understand the structure of English and to punctuate, spell and analyse its grammar correctly. In Britain, that sort of tuition seems to count as higher education.
I look with amazement at how, in Britain, we are sending children out into the world. State schools are always trying to find ways of "making classes interesting" to the child, sports days are discouraged in some areas to avoid the nasty taste of competition, and discipline has become a big no-no. Children are going out into this hostile, competitive, unfair world convinced that unless something is interesting they needn"t tackle it and that they will get jobs without effort.
Worst of all, British children seem to believe that the responsibility for making them a success in their lives lies firmly with their teachers or the Government, and that if the teachers and the Government let them down they can always turn to the benefits system. This is terribly unfair on our children.
You may think the Italian system is harsh and unfair, but none the less Italian teenagers are happy, bright, and fit into, and are a compliment to, their local societies. They are inquisitive, self-confident and full of the joy of life. They understand that everything is up to them; they do not expect, unlike some of our youngsters, someone else to run their lives for them.
While pandering to the supposed needs of our children we have turned them into grasping and spoiled little brats who think the whole world is an Aladdin"s cave of goodies and that failure to provide every facility to amuse can result in spiteful revenge and repercussions.We have robbed our children of the right, and necessity, to captain their own ship. We, not they, are to blame for the captious youth and chip-on-the-shoulder uneducated yobs of today.
Europe - and particularly eastern Europe - has taken a sensible and serious approach to education. In this country we have, for the most part, followed the American habit of dumbing it down.
We certainly have a society rich in poorly-educated masses, many scarcely able to read and write, and capable of little more than boring manual work, who unthinkingly accept the rubbish food, rubbish products and rubbish entertainment prevalent today.
They remind me of the glassy-eyed Eloi in H G Wells"s Time Machine. A race of people who thought they were enjoying a perfect way of life but, fed and watered and kept safe, were, in fact, only being used to fatten others.
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บทความนี้ลงใน Daily Telegraph, UK เปรียบเทียบระบบการศึกษาอังกฤษกับอิตาลี ผมคิดว่ามีหลายประเด็นที่ "สะท้อน" เหตุการณ์ที่เป็น"ผล" มาจากระบบความคิด และออกไปทางระบบการศึกษา ที่เน้นมาก (และผมเน้นไว้) คือ "เจตคติ" น่าสนใจดีครับ
Posted by : Phoenix , Date : 2004-09-12 , Time : 10:57:26 , From IP : 203.156.43.170
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