The traces of the themes proposed at this year’s maturity correspond to universal thoughts that are always alive in our conscience on which students are invited to reflect critically. Frank Furedi’s ideas, on the problematic crossroads between identity and boundaries, youth and maturity, limits to be respected and freedom to be conquered, they seem designed to encourage teenagers to take a stand by demonstrating their beliefs.
I will be curious to know what some students who at Penny Wirton have had experience as teachers of the Italian language to immigrants have written in this regard. I know some of these students well and I believe they have a lot to say having met, in recent months, peers from all over the world.
The fatal one-sidedness of certain great loves that filters into the last verses of Cesare Pavese, often cited to the detriment of his most important collections, can spark some sparks in young people. The positive side of effort such as dedication, patience and tenacity, present in song by Mario Calabresi, reminds us of the need for concentration and slownessespecially today in the information age.
Even the value of memory as an intensification of existence, underlined by Vitaliano Brancati, has the possibility of being investigated profitably.
Candidates will have plenty to indulge in between the creative matrix of scientific reasoning, illustrated with concrete examples by Piero Biancucci and the sense of amazement and wonder in the face of nature expressed by Wenke Husmann.
Who knows if some of them will start again from the humanistic and relational hope that Giuseppe Saragat expressed on 26 June 1946 at the dawn of the Italian Republic. All the topics seem significant to me, then it will depend on the way in which the students deal with them, not only today, in the first written test, also in the following days, during the oral interviews, when perhaps the commissions will call them to discuss them.
