17 giugno 2020
As of Wednesday, June 17, 2020, the Final State Examinations for the 2019-2020 school year will kick off, which, as per Ministerial Order No. 10 of May 16, 2020, will be held by means of only the oral interview in presence, at the headquarters of one's school.
In this regard, the Legal Representative of the S. Freud Private School of Milan, Dr. Daniele Nappo, was interviewed by Agenzia Giornalistica Italia, chosen as the spokesperson, for the city of Milan, of this final stage of a school year that will surely remain in the annals.
The students arrived serene and prepared," Dr. Nappo explained, "because Freud is an educational institution where teaching has been multimedia for 28 years; during the lock down, DaD worked very well: all the programs were finished early, thanks to the offer of 5 thousand video lessons produced by the school's teachers.
Below is the article, which can be found at the link https://www.agi.it/cronaca/news/2020-06-17/maturit-esami-8925897/
Away from classmates, alone in front of the board, in some cases boxed in Plexiglas boxes and in others 'missing' in a gymnasium. 'Armored' high school exams for Italian students in the days of Covid-19. Performance anxiety was compounded by 'health' anxiety, but all in all, the test seems to have been passed without too much damage. At least to hear from the principals of some institutions in major Italian cities. There was no shortage of inconveniences and even, at times, assemblages, but the desire of the students to meet again to experience together a fundamental passage in their lives prevailed, often to the notes of Venditti's 'Night Before Exams.
Milan
A "very cold and schematic maturity in which our main concern is to orient the boys in health procedures." This is how Daniele Nappo, founder and director of Milan's Freud Paritarian Institute, describes the first day of the last act of its 150 students enrolled in the three addresses offered, technical-technological, technical-economic and high school of social sciences.
"The students arrived serene and prepared," he explains to AGI, "because we are a school where teaching has been multimedia for 28 years and, in the months at home, they worked so well that they were able to finish the programs ahead of time thanks to the offer of 5 thousand video lessons. But there is no doubt that this year's maturity has nothing to do with the usual one. We feel sorry for all these kids we have seen from the premiere who find themselves the protagonists of a soulless ceremony. Only one person can attend, whereas other years there was the girlfriend, the friend, the one who came to hear the questions in preparation for his or her exam. If there is no chaperone, we keep the door open for those who want to testify to come in. Even for teachers it is not easy, certainly no one can think of being able to fail. This does not mean that it is a farce, but the incentive to test preparation has been lost."
According to Nappo, "Meritocracy has been zeroed out, also because with distance learning it is more complicated to assess, which with this mode presents many contingencies.
TURIN
"The exams went smoothly, it went well but I really hope it is the first and last time." The headmaster of Turin's 'Domenico Berti' teacher training institute, Jeanclaude Arnod, comments on the first day of the post-Covid baccalaureate. "The tests lasted an average of one hour for each student," the executive explains, "with a quarter-hour break between candidates to sanitize the environment. We provided the students with sanitizing liquid, masks and gloves, while it was decided not to measure the temperature, since everyone handed in their self-certification at the entrance where they attested that they had no flu symptoms."
This morning Arnod was commissioner at the 'Gioberti' classical high school where, unlike at 'Berti,' Plexiglas barriers were placed between the children and teachers. "Since the beginning of the pandemic," the executive further explains, "I have always maintained that the exam should be done in presence and not in online mode. It is true that the written is skipped, but in one hour you can still evaluate the candidate. The task of the commissioners was more to prevent internal teachers from being influenced by their idea of individual students. It's not fair that the weight of the exam should be underestimated, otherwise they might as well not have done it."
Venice
At the Liceo delle scienze Umane "Niccolò Tommaseo" high school in Venice, the strictest line has been chosen. The 250 or so students who have to take the baccalaureate exam are summoned with a specific timetable and can enter the building no more than 10 minutes before the oral test. Waiting for them in the five classrooms provided is a Plexiglas box about three feet by two feet with a writing desk and a Lim (the Interactive Multimedia Whiteboard), and from there, without ever being able to leave or move outside the location, they must answer the questions of the board (itself "boxed" in Plexiglas boxes).
"Obviously at the end of the test each box dedicated to the students is sanitized," Vice Principal Maria Luisa Zennaro explained to AGI: "It is a specific choice of each school what safety equipment to put in place, and we have chosen to do this in order not to take risks and to protect students and teaching staff as much as possible. Even I cannot go and see how the exams are going because there is a very specific maximum number set for each classroom," he added. After the exam is over, students take the exit corridor, which is well separated from the entrance corridor, and return outside the building where they can re-embrace the parent or boyfriend (strictly one) they have chosen as their chaperone.
Bologna
"I saw the kids sufficiently calm, a bit like always, not less motivated than usual or less anxious: so it means they care, they want to take an exam done right, they didn't take it lightly. Those we saw this morning were all justifiably excited, concerned about making a good impression, showing that they had prepared." So told AGI by Professor Paolo Bernardi, principal of the Itc Rosa Luxemburg in Bologna, who has just come out of the baccalaureate exam performed in the morning, which saw the board-all of which were internal teachers, excluding the principal-examine five candidates after the lockdown test caused by the coronavirus emergency. "We use the exam as a chance to bring out the personalities of these kids," the principal explained, "the evaluations they've had for three years every single day from their teachers who know them very well. This is an opportunity where you get to spar a little bit, and those who are a little less studious and a little more resourceful, they get to maybe get those two extra points which are not too bad."
For the Bologna principal, the baccalaureate test at the grip of the ministerial safeguard provisions for coronavirus appeared manageable. "In the timeframe you fit - the principal explains, you have to organize well because the preparation of the multidisciplinary material for the third part of the interview has to be done the same morning, so that you have materials half-ready because otherwise you lose a lot of time, but I would say that this morning we did it well."
Florence
"The first day went well, the guys are calm. Of course there remains some concern because they only learned about the exam arrangements on May 16, but the internal teachers calmed them down. And then they also worked well with distance learning, in fact you can say they worked even harder and achieved all the goals. I am very proud of these kids."
Gilda Tortora, principal of the Michelangiolo High School of Classics in Florence, comments on the start of the baccalaureate exam in this way. About 120 students from the institute are engaged in the exam, which will continue until July 3 with three commissions, organized according to anticovid security protocols. "Ever since we received the guidelines," he explains, "we have been gearing up for the exam and to cope with next year. We also have a collaboration with the Red Cross and have organized a unique 'triage,' where our school staff, who have taken a course, have them sign self-certifications and give gloves, gels and masks; then they accompany the children to the classroom.
Naples
"I sensed the anxiety of the students, who are understandably excited, but it was important for us and for them to see each other again and to experience this moment in their presence". Salvatore Pace is the headmaster of the Pansini classical high school in Naples and on this day he has a double mission: to monitor the situation in his school and to examine the students of the Vittorio Emanuele II classical high school, where he has been appointed as an external member of the commission. Precisely the role of the commission, in his opinion, 'is very important, because,' he explains to AGI, 'this is a different kind of maturity, it is useless to deny it. The boys are more fragile than we are used to seeing them, so the teachers must understand the situation and show that they too are mature'.
Pace emphasises how the lockdown phase, the isolation, the obligation to stay at home 'can greatly affect the psychological balance of an adolescent. It is noticeable that these kids miss three months of school in presence; distance learning can be useful, but it can never replace the real one, which also means confrontation and relationships".
He assures that all the students in the last classes of the Pansini, with whom he spoke by videoconference, "asked to be able to do the maturity in presence". "It's a good thing for us too," he points out, "and the commitment I am also perceiving among the Vittorio Emanuele students is positive, despite the anxiety and emotion. Obviously one cannot expect this to be 'an exam like all the others: the conditions are very different from previous years, so we teachers must also take the right approach'. No doubts, however, about the health aspect. "I believe that at the moment the school is the safest place for children to be," he concludes, "at Pansini we have prepared these days with maniacal attention, the same as I see at the institute where I am now.
Bari
"The candidates are serene and we teachers are very happy to see them again". In the words of the headmistress of the high school Quinto Orazio Flacco in Bari, Maria Rosaria Clelia Gioncada, there is the common feeling with which this year's anomalous Matura exams are being experienced. Among students and professors, the joy of reunion prevails, after three months of school closures and virtual lessons. In Apulia, 37,746 students are being called upon to take the maturity exams, with the new methods decided by the Ministry of Education. Many of them, yesterday evening, did not miss the traditional meeting in front of the school, where they sang Antonello Venditti's song 'Notte prima degli esami'. In Bari, a large group formed right in front of the Flacco high school, where a video was shot and then shared on Facebook. In the classical school on the Apulian capital's seafront, three very large rooms were set up to allow as much space as possible: the library, the Mediterranea museum room and the assembly hall.
Headmaster Gioncada acts as chairman of the commission at another institute, the Fermi in Canosa-Minervino, where the exams are being held in a large laboratory. After each candidate passes, the school staff sanitise the bench. "After the understandable initial bewilderment, everything is going well," explained headmistress Gioncada: "Taking the exams like this is undoubtedly more tiring, because there are so many stringent rules to comply with, but we are chameleon-like and we have to adapt. The prevailing feeling, however, is the joy of having seen our students again after so long". The mature students came to school wearing masks, their temperature was taken at the entrances and hand sanitiser gels were provided. Teachers and school staff are also wearing masks.
Palermo
"The children were not very well prepared, but we cannot hold that against them. They did, however, acquire an important skill: problem solving'. Vito Pecoraro, head of the Istituto Alberghiero in Palermo and president of the commission at the Pio la Torre Technical Institute in the same city, takes stock of this first day of the Matura with AGI. "From the point of view of the Covid measures it went very well, everything was well organised," he says. "But," he adds, "the dimension of the relationship, which is fundamental in the Italian school, was missing: the strength of the writings, for example, which allow us to get to know the person. "The students were not ready for distance learning, so it happened that a student who had an average of 7 did not perform in the same way in the exam, and this cannot be his fault. A good result,' he says, 'came from a disabled student. However, everyone had to solve problems at home in order to study, and this is an acquired skill'.
Vito Pecoraro leads the largest school in Italy, 1,800 pupils. "It's definitely nice to see the classrooms full again,' he emphasises, 'and I miss hearing the 'screams' of the students. As soon as the commission's work at Pio la Torre was finished, I stopped by my school to see how the exams are conducted, but above all my students'.
