We transformed the school into the container of our emergencies. But the school is not a container. It is a living organism. Needs care, attention, respect
Whenever something does not work in our society, the answer is always the same: “Let’s teach it at school.” Are the boys know their rights? Civic education is needed. Is there an emotional emergency? We make sentimental education. Is there the climatic crisis? We dedicate hours to sustainability in all classes. Is the AI that is advancing? The school must prepare them. Every fragility, every urgency, every episode of news that highlights a problem and every epochal change is put on the shoulders of the school. From primary to superiors, it is claimed that teachers, teachers and managers become experts of everything: technology, emotions, social justice, neuroscience, demanding that there are ready answers, ready lessons, ready programs. But the school is not a machine and the knowledge that transmits – with what effort! – They are not interchangeable as they were pieces of an engine, or a computer.
And while new “tasks” are added to the school, the creeping sufficiency with which it is considered what the school has always done is made to the way: teaching.
Italian, history, mathematics, geography, sciences, philosophy … every time it is said that they are no longer enough, that they are “old”, “abstract”, “far from reality”. But is it really the case? Or have we stopped seeing how fundamental they are to form thinking heads? With what lightness today it is said – or rather, arises with the facts, because in words they are all good – that studying literature is not needed, that music or art are useless, that history can be cut, that mathematics is only for those who do “accounts”, that geography is no longer needed now that there are navigators and so on. As if it were enough to speak of topicality in the classroom, chasing “new skills”, to make a student a conscious citizen. So, while asking the school to deal with everything, a project after project and insertion after insertion, the time and dignity is subtracted to do what should be his heart: educating at thought. Teaching to think, to express themselves, to critically read the world. What forms the base is devalued, as if the foundations were superfluous, as if it had not yet been understood – at this point, it will be so! – That dedicating yourself only to the upper floors, on the contrary to the facade, cannot be enough and cannot serve.
Furthermore, in such a complex picture in which it is necessary to get used to complexity and new challenges to add to those of all time, instead of proposing the exact opposite made of simplification and replacement, the school cannot make it alone. For example, he cannot replace families. He cannot fill the emotional, social, cultural void that is created out. It cannot be the only place to learn to stay in the world, to grow by going towards peace and not towards conflict, to take a look at the other and not only on oneself. And it should not be left alone to try to put the pieces of crumbled personality and society together back together.
Just say “the school has to do more”, it serves to start asking us what is being done out of school as adults, as a community, as a company. Because educating is not only the task of those who teach. It is a collective responsibility. And if we really want to give something good to our children, our students, we must stop pretending that the school is everything. And finally start to stand next to her. Having watched all “teenagers” and having made a post for Danteì last month, it is clear, it was not enough.
