Dear President Fontana, you messed up the school. Here because
"Do not tell us that there were no alternatives: the alternatives were there and you have not explored them, you have not implemented them, and you have preferred to remove what was less noisy to remove: school for 15 year olds". Diana Zuncheddu's post
The school was not to be closed, unless after having closed all the closable possible.
Do I have a direct interest? Absolutely yes. I am a mother of three, 9, 12 and 15 years old. Can you think that I say that the school must remain open because it is more comfortable for me not to have them at home? Absolutely yes. It is. But it's not just that, and it's not even the most important point, as it happens.
The important point is that in this case, removing one of the accelerators of the increase in infections – open schools – without having first evaluated and removed all the superfluous that is there, is wrong.
It is wrong not because it is a very serious psychological trauma not to go to school at fifteen, but also; it is wrong not because perhaps they will never understand the relative Latin connection from a distance, but also; it is wrong not because they will not be able to see for a while, above the mask, the eyes of the girl who makes them blush. Also. And I'd love to see Youporn's video stats.
But above all: it is wrong because studying, becoming aware, therefore free to choose, is what we have been saying to our children for years that has the most value in the world, and instead that value, out of the blue, poof, hello, I was joking, does not exist more.
Are the vehicles too crowded ? You could think about it from March to today. Do they congregate outside school? Get in the brigade. But do not tell us that there were no alternatives: the alternatives were there and you have not probed them, you have not implemented them, and you have preferred to remove, Mr. Fontana, what was less noisy to remove: school for fifteen year olds. No, no, people are dying of hunger, and no more than Covid. Who hears Confindustria? The unions? Close the shops no, the same as above. Close the gyms, ditto. The stadiums? May it never be.
Leaving kids at home is easier, more cowardly, and less problematic: who hears them? They talk? Do they scream? But no. In some respects they are also happy with it: they get up half an hour later, the checks and questions are true up to a certain point, the program is done, but it goes slowly. Not to mention those who don't have a good connection, a PC, and are left out.
What sense of justice do we convey to them with these choices? What sense of public service? Of equity? Of "the starting points the same for everyone and then if you are good you arrive"? Puff, hello, I was kidding.
The kids who don't go to school today will get a little depressed, as happened in March; do they lose the rhythm of daily, pressing, continuous work – what they will have to get used to for the rest of their lives? – they are left behind with a few pieces of the program; they feel less the urge to succeed, because I don't see the others in the face anyway, they don't see me, if I care, or I care for myself, but who cares. Covid made us rediscover the importance of the relationship. Uau.
Fifteen-year-old boys who do not go to school do not starve, perhaps they will starve when they grow up, because they will not be able to distinguish the usury interest rate from a standard interest rate. But patience: the real defeat is that they have already understood that they don't matter a shit, because for us adults, first of all, they don't matter a shit.
And here, last but not least, the public school arrives, the principals, teachers, shop assistants and canteens arrive.
I'm sorry to say, I didn't think public school could bring out the character it brought out in times of Covid. I'm talking about schools in Milan, that's fine, but many, from elementary to high school, have shown that they have a clear understanding of what public service is and how much social responsibility linked to the work they have chosen.
Classes were divided when too numerous to enter a classroom where the distances imposed by the Ministry could not be respected . The income and expenses have been divided. Pupils always keep their masks, although in some primary classes they allow you to pull it down when you are at the desk and looking ahead. Some high school principals have decided that the school had lost enough, the boys, so on the first of September everyone in class. I would have expected the professors' trade union revolt, but no: the boys went back to class on September 1st. The canteens are working. The shop assistants did not all fall ill en masse from a cold, as some had imagined could happen.
Chapeau.
At least, Mr. Fontana, don't say that the school has closed it in my name too. Or on behalf of the teachers who have been in class since the first of September. Or in the name of the clerks, the cooks, the principals.
He messed, and he messed in his name.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/caro-presidente-fontana-sulla-scuola-lei-ha-toppato-ecco-perche/ on Fri, 23 Oct 2020 05:19:06 +0000.