In September, many of the decisions that will define the schooling for the coming year begin. With families visiting schools and enrollments opening soon (and in the month of Teacher’s Day), education specialist María Victoria Alfieri proposes looking at the choice of school from another angle: not to search for the “perfect” institution, but for one whose project can be understood and in which each child can unfold their potential.
For Alfieri, a visit allows reading three dimensions: the environment, the relationships, and the relation to the process of learning and knowledge. “A school is not only observed: it is also felt. Sometimes a family doesn’t know exactly what to look for, but feels that something different is happening there. That first perception also deserves to be heard.”
How can we know if what a school says is really happening? The specialist proposes going beyond the information on the website and asking the institution to show how its proposal is concrete. And she also raises a warning sign: “Perhaps a signal to pay attention to is the gap between what a school says and what it can make visible.”
For Alfieri, what the school wants to know about the family and the child in the initial contacts says a lot about the institution: “The questions a school asks reveal much about its way of looking at childhood,” she asserts.
Regarding the incorporation of AI, for Alfieri the challenge is for technology and artisanal thinking to coexist: “The question, then, is not only whether children use artificial intelligence, but for what purpose they use it, what they do with what they receive, and how much independent thinking exists before, during, and after using it. Not necessarily a school with more screens is a more contemporary school.”
In the face of adults’ tendency to seek “the best school,” Alfieri proposes another view: what educational experience do we imagine for this boy or girl? “Perhaps it is not about finding a perfect school, but about finding a school whose project we can understand, in which our child can unfold their potential, and in whose community we can imagine that, little by little, we too will be able to live it.” she concludes.
María Victoria Alfieri: Bachelor in Education Sciences. A reference figure in Reggio Emilia pedagogy in the region. Specialist in play. Author, speaker, and Chief Executive Officer of Aletheia.
