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The importance of going back to school in Italy: Educating for the Future

September represents throughout Italy the time for the return to school. 7 million children, boys and girls in these hours are packing their backpacks for the first day of classes, ready to walk through the school door again or for the first time. As always, these are days filled with different and mixed emotions: there is the excitement of a new beginning, but also the sadness for an exciting summer that is now over, the eagerness to find out what the school year will have in store for us, and at the same time the fear that something might go wrong. There are those who eagerly look forward to this day and those who wish it would never come: the alarm clock going off again at dawn, homework to do, and tests and quizzes to pass.

As young people, in fact, we often struggle to understand the importance of school and how useful the notions we learn here can be in the future. Adults strive to get this message across, but the whole thing is very complicated, and kids are known to listen poorly to the advice of those who are older. Perhaps a reflection should be made within the school as well: can the content and the forms in which it is communicated really still be attractive and useful for the future of the younger generation? Of course, not everything is to be thrown away, but perhaps some changes are worth making, and the new laws, not least the reforms proposed within the NRP, seem to be moving in this direction.

Certainly there is a segment of students, however, who feel the importance of schooling strongly, or at least their families do. These are the children of people who have recently moved to our country, forced by war, hunger and poverty to leave their own; for some it was not even easy or possible to be able to study in their own country, and the Italian school represents an opportunity for redemption and revenge.

These people watch their children go to school with eyes full of excitement and pride, knowing that this is just the first step toward a different future, toward a better path for the family. They are convinced, in fact, of the importance of education for the children and hope that soon they may be the ones to help them navigate a world in which they too often struggle to adapt and understand the language. In front of so many students huffing and puffing and bored at school desks, these people might tell how wonderful it is to be lucky enough to be able to study. And then you might hear an African woman who could not complete her studies in her own country say as she looks at her son, "He will know three languages: Italian because he lives here, French because it is the language of his parents, and English, because he will go to school!"

 

Francis Menichincheri