Too Many School Hours in Italy: Children Need to Rest and Play More

Right! Lack of sleep leads to depression...and besides, it doesn't seem to me that there are great results.

Results that do not correspond to so many hours of school. Some hours are useless or poorly managed. As always, the fish stinks from the head, but serious reform interventions starting from the bottom never happen. For a student, it only depends on luck to have a capable teacher. But for a decent school system, one cannot rely on luck. In addition to the ministry which every few years now must shoot its reform haphazardly, passing it off as a panacea for every evil, I would like the other involved parties (families first and foremost) to work towards a school that can actually be called such. We don't need more 'school-fied' [degraded schools]. No one ever thinks about the real needs of children/young people.

It doesn't seem to me that there is any dialogue with families. From an institutional point of view... you, family, have the duty to come to the meetings that are scheduled: the institution speaks and parents listen... and execute. And they call it an educational pact...

Many families would be better off staying silent. Schools must fill the hours when parents are working. And they fill them however they can, often in a haphazard way. If we start again from the kids, we need to understand what to do with them so they aren't home alone watching porn already at 13 years old or younger. I have always thought of after-school programs as help for the kids. An after-school program where homework is done, which otherwise wouldn't be completed. In the presence of someone who can help. Perhaps in self-help groups where possible. When they return home, they should have finished all their homework and studied their lessons and DEDICATE THEMSELVES TO SOMETHING ELSE!

I can only confirm that school hours are too many. In a day there are 24h and on average a student who wants to be efficient at school sleeps 8-9h, so they remain awake during the day for about 15h. Of these 15h, at least 6 are spent at school since most students enter at 8:00 and leave at 14:00. So they will only have 9h left in the afternoon, but wait, at least 3-4 of those must be spent studying for school. In short, let's think about it for a moment, can a student only have 5h a day available for themselves? Doesn't that seem a bit of a gamble? And this argument doesn't just apply to children, it also applies to adolescents. The brain does not have an attention span high enough to endure all this; this method is nothing but torture! Personally, being in my 5th year, I don't feel at all capable of handling this stress, and if I can't handle it at 18, I can't imagine a child at 6-7 years old! And it's not even over yet, because we would also have to add the afternoon projects organized by the school...