The Christmas holidays are approaching and, this year too, we are back to discussing whether or not it is appropriate to leave children with homework to do. To the Convitto Umberto I di Torino, the school director Maria Teresa Furci he has very clear ideas about this. “Do not assign homework for the holidays,” she wrote in a circular sent to teachers. The motivation is as follows: “Students need time to rest to face the new year with greater energy and energy.” How to blame her?
Holidays, precisely because they are such, should be used by children to relax, spend time with the family, get to know new places, discover local traditions, be in the company of their friends, cousins, grandparents, dedicate themselves to games and recreational activities. Why, then, turn them into a prison? What's the point? Rather, the manager asked the teachers to personalize the tasks, thinking about revision topics for the weaker students, and rewarding the most deserving by freeing them from school obligations.
“Using holidays to recharge your energy”
The Christmas holidays are always not very "holidays" when you have so many tasks to do which, moreover, students tend to put off until the last days, those before returning to school. Manager Furci asks teachers to encourage children to discover the world and be carefree, so that they can use the holidays to recharge the necessary energy and resume their studies with the right energy.
In the Turin school, this initiative is not new because it has already been undertaken in recent years. “Students – we read in the circular – need time to rest and not to worry about and worry about homework, especially during the winter holidays”. “We know well – explains the manager – how much the best students do not need them and how the weakest ones, possibly, will avoid doing them or will get help from parents or friends, in the corner kick, the day before returning to school. school".
Last year the principal's circular caused discussion Antonella Mongiardo ofManzoni-Augruso comprehensive institute of Lamezia Terme (Catanzaro). Also through this document, teachers were asked: "At Christmas, no homework for the holidays to allow students to rest", citing the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This issue of homework for the holidays is, in fact, an increasingly debated issue in recent years, and we are sure that Italian students, of all levels, would approve this decision without batting an eyelid and with great enthusiasm. Because it is right that holidays are lived in freedom and serenity.
(Photo: Pixabay)
