Reflections on school

Alessio Aldini (olgelao@tin.it)

 When I started attending high school I had the impression that I was entering a new world, completely detached from the real one, a world made by ideal entities such as numbers, old-fashioned authors, dead languages. The impact with this new reality was dramatic: I was not prepared for something like that, to discover this abstract part of mine which could trascend reality and get lost in this ideal, Platonic world. During these years I have spent a lot of time thinking about myself, my skills, my limits. School has given me an extremely critical attitude towards life, a doubtful and insecure mind. At the same time it made me become a "smart watcher": I feel I can analyse everything around me in a more detailed way, from new points of view. My emotional intelligence has been enormously enhanced by school. Nevertheless it did not give me the chance to apply these skills. I mean that it is hard to watch and analyse people when you spend all of your time studying and it is hard to enjoy your youth when you meet a certain kind of teachers along your way. I did not want school to open my mind so much, it is a danger that teachers do not completely understand or they do not want to face, to see. When you sound out reality too much, sometimes you are only a watcher, you are not a part of it and often you feel unhappy, you wish your mind were free, limited. Sometimes I feel guilty when I don’t have any duties to fulfil, I feel my life is empty, I am not used to freedom any longer. Teachers have an unlimited power on young minds, they should think about it and think that we are first of all boys and girls, then men and women, that ours is supposed to be the age of continuos happiness and carelessness. Sense of responsibility can kill, can suffocate people that sooner or later will explode and then it may be too late. Let us play a bit more and think less, maybe we will realize what you want to teach us by ourselves and then we will not refuse it.