Federico: “I lack the emotions for homework …”

Goodbye 2020, you didn’t leave a good mark on me, but I learned from that too. You changed my way of life in an unexpected way, a real revolution of habits. You have led me to isolate myself from family affections, friends, new experiences and then school.

Yes, the school, the second family, which I lived almost every day, classmates, teachers, friends in the corridors. The crowd of young people who thunderously broke the quiet of that complex every morning that welcomes about 1200 people including students and staff.

You isolated me in a room, alone, with a screen in front of me that comes to life with a different face every hour, but no warmth, no closeness, an absence presence. Our much acclaimed “virtual” which, isolated from everyday life, the real one, is perhaps not as top as we young people think.

I miss greetings on entry or exit. Emotions xi classwork or questions, no more eye to eye with the teachers or the cute girl from the next class. No more bells to mark the hours of lessons, long awaited for those few minutes of pause between one subject and another. No more recreations between laughter and appointments. Nothing more to tell at home after school.

Yes, my school which now looks like a bare tree, cloaked in an anomalous silence and a static cold. My school seems to me a sad and suffering mother who awaits her children with open arms and awaits them hopefully. He knows that we will return, he knows that he will still have to educate us, love to reproach us, accompany us in our growth on this path of education. He also knows that he will find us changed.

Each distance changes us. For better or for worse; who knows. But of one thing I am sure: it certainly gave me a great life lesson, nothing is taken for granted and even a small gesture, which for me was daily, normal, instinctive like a handshake, a hug, a kiss, a visit. , an outing with friends took on a different value in my eyes. Before, I didn’t notice.

Perhaps nature, in its own way, wanted to remind us of who we are, that we are not made just to “run”. Time has stopped. He told us to look inside, to look around. He took a “something” out of our hands because we were ungrateful and bored … and now that that “something” is no longer in our hands, we can understand its immense value. That something is called, freedom, it is called values, affections, it is called education, it is called health and in one word it is called Vita. I miss my life from before.

Federico Caschetto 2 D / s Liceo Scientifico Einaudi, Syracuse

You can send your letter to the school at the following address: [email protected]. The letters are published in the special Dear School, I am writing to you …