Letizia: “School is humanity, it is socialization and sharing”

Dear School,

how many questions each of us asks in this particular historical period. From a world where we used to think we know everything we found ourselves catapulted into a new reality where everything is uncertain and the answers cannot be found.

A year ago our lives changed radically, although we had some ray of normality and some glimmers of improvement, now those moments seem over, like distant memories no longer reachable, like the summer photos we look at while it is snowing outside our window .

During the first lockdown we students and even teachers have had to adapt to a new learning method, completely different and far from the school reality to which we have always been used. From one day to the next we found ourselves confined in our homes, perhaps without even the school books left at school and perhaps with the hope of returning to get those books.

Hope, this is the word with which I would describe the spring of 2020, those months that are certainly hard, but also full of hope: probably due to the unawareness that there was about this virus, to the spring that hovered in the air and to summer that awaited us.

Here’s what we miss now: while before we saw an end, a light at the end of the tunnel, now everything is uncertain, we understand that this little enemy is not something so small and fleeting, and until we understand how to live with it we will not be able to return. to normal. It is no longer a momentary period, if previously the power of this virus was uncertain, now we and our strength are uncertain.

The aspect that most frightens me and my peers is the future, already uncertain in itself and too big for our young lives, now more unknown than ever. We feel lost, I could say forgotten by our country and by everything. A country where education is considered one of the best but which then closes schools before bars.

Certainly in such a critical moment DAD is good for us, if only it had happened 10 years ago everything would have been different and certainly worse. On the other hand, distance learning cannot be considered an equivalent of school in the presence: School is not just about study, homework and questions. School is humanity, it is socialization and sharing. If these factors are removed from us, we could say that we live like robots: we assimilate concepts and formulas without finding a reason, only for the duty to do so, in order to achieve a standard result that we confuse with happiness.

Here is what the DAD took away from us: awareness, knowing the why of things. It is making us forget that life, even school life, is not just a set of votes that make us become a number. Life includes people, looks, laughter and even fights. We realize in these moments that the most important things are the simplest: take the bus with friends, laugh between lessons, study in a bar after school until late in the evening and go home exhausted, but happy. . Happy with the human contact, the few moments of lightheartedness in the study breaks and above all happy to be together.

Those moments, small but essential, are no longer there. Between one lesson and the next, you no longer laugh, you are fixed on your mobile phone screen, perhaps even talking to friends but still feeling the distance. A distance that unfortunately is not only physical, but also emotional. We are in the same boat but in different compartments and not reachable with each other.

This speech may seem superfluous considering that there is a global pandemic underway, but I am convinced that the actual long-term effects of this pandemic will be mostly mental and social (especially for us kids): while we learn school notions from home we unlearn human notions. Relationships break down and people become unaccustomed to what was once normal, that is, being in the midst of society, living in this world.

The problem is that sooner or later we will have to go back to this forgotten normality. And in that moment we will truly realize what the DAD has taken from us. That’s why I find it important to get up every day with the knowledge that sooner or later, everything will end; while still not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. However, remembering that when it ends, we will have to be open to everything and despite being afraid, despite being afraid of the world that awaits us, we will have to welcome everything with open arms, reminding us that School, as well as Life, means living together and having experiences with other people, integrating obviously the lessons and values ​​that are taught to us between school desks (or through a screen).

Letizia, Salvatore Quasimodo Linguistic High School of Magenta

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