What do we take home? Certainly many discussions and quite a few controversies. Who really has the ability to say they are mature? Imagine if we can establish this by observing kids for a few hours during an exam taken in unusually hot and muggy conditions. Students who, during the written tests, didn’t know whether to choose to write or fan themselves with a fan, or rely on the now inevitable and very useful portable fans. Italian topics? Perhaps more suitable for adulthood than for young people just starting out in life. And then the presentation of one’s path and curriculum. For some it seemed like a small psychoanalysis session from which a clear message emerged: “We want to tell you who we really are.” For others, however, it was simply a formality: «Should we do it? Let’s do it. But know that it is glossy paper, good for a selection interview.»
Net of these absolutely personal reflections and the question about the meaning that this exam still has today, what I can confirm is that anxiety, at times, makes one say truly extravagant things. And which, more than concern, brought out a few smiles. Just to laugh about it, here are some pearls. To the question: “Can you tell me about the crisis of ’29?” the answer started with the “New Street crisis”… And then moved on to Hitler’s famous “My Kraf”, which certainly would have done less damage than Mein Kampf. Another student, however, explained that the book was written during the period of “redemption” in prison… or rather, detention!
And then there is civic education, this unknown. A lot of effort is put into communicating its importance, but then, in practice, it is often poorly developed during the year. Especially when there is a lack of teachers of legal disciplines who can act as a point of reference and build those truly transversal and interdisciplinary paths that the subject requires. Too often, however, it simply becomes an hour entrusted to each teacher, not shared with the rest of the class council and in which, let’s face it, many kids end up getting bored.
To the question: «What is the Constitution for you?» hear me reply: «A piece of paper» it made me jump in my seat. Then, however, looking into that boy’s eyes, I understood that there was no provocation or controversy. There was simply a total absence of reflection. And this is perhaps the aspect that should concern us most. If this is the future, then it is time to make a serious reflection on ourselves and on the way in which these kids, I would like to underline, high school kids, arrive at the final test of their studies. If tomorrow they will have to govern artificial intelligence and not be governed by it, then we must have the courage to change the paradigm. We must move away from the rhetoric of seriousness and severity at all costs and enter into a new way of thinking about school and the future. Because the real question is not what we want the state exam to be like. The real question is: who do we want to be the leaders, the professionals, the citizens of tomorrow? The answer is before our eyes. They are today’s students. And their future depends, even more than on them, on what we adults choose to teach, to transmit and, above all, to bear witness to.
