“A gesture, certainly of a few blocks, but brutal, ugly, violent, heavy”. With these words the principal of the Carducci high school in Milan, Andrea Di Mario, condemned the blitz carried out on Saturday morning in front of the school in via Beroldo, where the photos were posted flipped by the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the Minister of Education, Giuseppe Valditara, accompanied by the banner “but what merit, yours is violence”.
The images caused bipartisan outrage – even minority parties showed their solidarity with the government – and the head teacher did not back down. “First of all, I am sorry for the institutional figures involved, I am also sorry for all the high school students, who had to witness this miserable spectacle as they entered school, like every day. We are all sorry because we do not recognize ourselves in this language, in these ways that are completely new and worrying for us and that we reject”, he wrote in a note addressed to children, parents and all school staff.
“The high school students immediately dissociated through their representatives and the whole school community, students, teachers, non-teachers, former students – of all ages – condemns the act of intimidation in the clearest way. The State Classical High School “Giosuè Carducci’ in Milan has always and increasingly been a multiple, open, peaceful: democratic space. Today we have received a painful damage with respect to everything that is being done in this school and we do not want our students to be victims of a banal circuit that trivializes the very reading of reality”, continued the principal. “We will continue as always and more and more to promote the values of democracy, tolerance and pluralism indicated in the Constitution, always keeping the door of educational dialogue wide open, even with those who, as in this case, may have deviated from it, without prejudice to the commitment to try to identify and pursue the responsibilities of the gesture. In this school the subjects of study are rigorously taught, but, I always say that Carducci is also a school of politics, because here the students have the opportunity to learn to practice the cult of representation, of confrontation, even on an equal footing between teachers and students, in the Joint Commission. We want to do it together, learning, creating new forms, without getting stuck in old, worn and gloomy languages that raise walls. The Carducciano is rigorous and does not accept the logic of a violent curve,” assured Di Mario.
“Politics is passion, courage – absolute respect – but above all preparation, the ability to inform oneself and argue, beyond the slogan and even beyond the rhetoric. We are the most populous classical high school in Milan and in the metropolitan city, we are the high school in Piazzale Loreto, a place where bestial atrocities, killings, blood on blood, vilification have taken place. According to Carducci, the so-called “modern high school” already existed since 1932. One should be modern and know how to look to the future, even in this same square, redesign it, because you can’t breathe in it, you die under a truck while riding a bicycle. These are the arguments. The actions to make public school ever better, for its students, in a global context, are arguments that also know how to take into account that in other parts of the world, girls and boys are poisoned with gas when they go to school. These are arguments”, reiterated the head teacher.
“In recent times via Beroldo has become a kind of theater for a few anonymous people who smear it with slogans at night. The road is about to be closed to traffic to become a “school road” and there are plans to furnish it and even paint it, together with the students. We want and must defend this doing, this acting as citizens, this common space of ours. It is an opportunity not to be missed. One of our former students writes: “I can only imagine the mood after the signs and the news”. the kids have nothing to do with it. I also know that with the dialogue you will in any case be able to bring out all the possible discomforts that the students feel, as you have already had the opportunity to demonstrate in the past. The newspaper headlines that speak of “Liceo Carducci” when the signs are in front of the high school, on another building, they cast a somewhat unnobleable light but… Really, I’m sure that kids and parents will understand the quality of the environment, the people and the offers. arly that this is and has always been the distinctive feature of our high school. We deserve it,” concluded the principal.
The same principal who also received the support of Minister Valditara on Sunday morning. “Congratulations to a courageous principal, aware of his high institutional role”, tweeted the exponent of the Meloni government, sharing the letter from the school principal on social media.