Idyllic schooldays

Three pupils at the village school in S. Osvaldo spending their playtime outside in the fresh air.

Idyllic schooldays Time moves at a different pace at the village school in Sant’Osvaldo.

Here, in one of the last remaining single-classroom schools in the region, all five classes are seated as one. The result is a harmonious combination of rustic idyll and progressive teaching methods.

I “Is this really a primary school?” I wonder, as I step into the well-kept little building across from the fire station. Colourful pictures decorate the windows and, like everywhere else here in Sant’Osvaldo, a small hamlet of Castelrotto, a peaceful hush pervades the air. The doors on the ground floor are wide open; in a large classroom, four children are absorbed in practicing their reading, unruffled by the announcement of my visit. In the small library, a girl with pigtails is sitting reading a book with ponies on the cover. Upstairs, two young boys are puzzling over their Italian exercises. Two older children are roleplaying a conversation. One girl is off sick, the young teacher tells me. And that’s it, here at the Sant’Osvaldo school: just ten pupils all in. This is one of the last single-classroom schools in South Tyrol, which were so commonplace up until the 1960s and which lay at the heart of the education system – and not only in the Alpine region.

Text: Sabine Funk Photo: Helmuth Rier

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This miniature form of school is today under threat: in comparison to “normal” schools, personnel costs are comparatively high, as is the teacher’s effort, as support and maths teacher Johanna Pattis tells us. In a single-classroom school, lesson materials and subject matter have to be planned

often for one or two pupils every day. For every ten pupils there’s one teacher, who covers every subject, except religion and Italian. The school is amply staffed at the moment, as two out of the ten pupils have Down’s syndrome. Observing the two happy girls with so much joy for life, one can see instantly that the calm, personal atmosphere »

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Today, single-class schools are a valuable part of the social infrastructure in rural areas.

of this small school is ideal for their integration and support. The school likewise benefits from the attendance of these two girls with the provision of an extra teacher and a support assistant.

The village community of Sant’Osvaldo is united as one behind “their” primary school and the parents have appeared before the local Education Authority on many occasions to plead for its preservation. The school is an important aspect of the quality of life in this outlying area: for example, it’s not just the parents of the pupils who attend the Christmas party, practically the whole village comes along. Identification with the school is strong.

Policy-makers also seem to recognise that the mini-school format is a treasure worth preserving.

Creating infrastructure to ensure that residing in a rural area remains an attractive, liveable prospect is one of the primary aims of the South Tyrol regional government. And infrastructure does not just mean streets and tunnels, but also preserving institutions which are important to the community.

Lessons at village schools have changed over the years. Teaching diligence and discipline to the polite young pupils at the Sant’Osvaldo school seems superfluous. Single-classroom schools have always had their own dynamics, with processes, which were effective long before teaching reforms were ever introduced. Young kids get their bearings from the older ones; learning processes are open and based on interaction. Sometimes Montessori methods are used, simply because they are so well-suited to cross-age group projects.

This kind of school has both its advantages and disadvantages, says Johanna Pattis. When the children go to secondary school in Castelrotto after 5 years of primary school and are suddenly seated in a class with twenty other children, many of them are daunted. In social skills, however, the children from village schools are often more mature. Nowadays, with the media chock-ablock with horror stories from schools, the idyll of Sant’Osvaldo seems almost surreal. Their future is uncertain, but one could wish no more for their children than to get a start like this in their education and life. «

Tagusa School Museum In a decidedly melancholic, strangely touching atmosphere, one visits another village school – the former public school of the hamlet of Tagusa. The bright room, which resounded with the chatter of around 45 children in the immediate post-war years, is now a small school museum. The old-fashioned desks, abacuses and yellowed wall maps will live on in more than just the school-day memories of old pupils; everybody can take a trip down memory lane in this museum, a living bridge to the past.

Paula Malfertheiner, who lives in the upper floor, was caretaker at the school until its closure in 1993; a living link to bygone days, she is happy to share her vivid memories and tales on the origins of the exhibits, and her joy at the school visits is plain to be seen. The school is open to visitors from Easter to All-Saints.

You can easily get from Castelrotto to Tagusa in two hours along easily accessible, picturesque roads, and the excellent bus service makes the use of public transport highly recommendable.

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