breaking latest news – There is progress with Quasimodo ‘To the new moon’, bourgeois boredom with the masterpiece of ‘The indifferent’ by Moravia and the praise of waiting linked to a reflection on the use of WhatsAppvery fast social network of modern times.
And again, there is the essential value of human creativity in the face of technological innovations as underlined by Piero Angela in the last testament work published in 2022 ’10 things I learned’. The analysis of Federico’s ‘The idea of a nation’ Chabod; and also ‘The Interview with the Story’ by Oriana Fallaci to reason on the themes of the Cold War and the nuclear threat.
HERE ARE THE TRACKS
Finally, perhaps among the most unexpected traces, the open letter sent in 2021 by the academic and cultural world to the former Minister of Education, Patrick Bianchi, precisely on the Maturity exam, a document that had been sent in full pandemic to ask to reintroduce the written tests to the State Exam abolished due to the risk of contagion. A non-random choice, this year, in conjunction with the return of the exam to the pre-Covid form.
For the 536,000 students called today for the first written exam in Italian, the 7 tracks decided by the ministry they seem to follow a ‘fil rouge’ which requires children to analyze and reflect on current issues – from progress to the nation, from boredom to speed – by joining the dots in a drawing that brings them all together.
Here are the 7 tracks
For text analysis (type A)
‘To the new moon’ by Salvatore Quasimodo. The poem, contained in the penultimate collection of the great poet, published in 1958, is inspired by the launch into orbit of the first artificial satellite Sputnik I the previous year, which opened the space race.
Quasimodo speaks of a “creator” man, and of a “lay intelligence” who “put other luminaries equal to those who have been around since the creation of the world“, i.e. the satellites, underlining again, as the students are asked, the courage of man that billions of years later God creates other artificial stars.
This is the text of the poem: In the beginning God created the sky and the earth, then on his exact day he placed the luminaries in the sky and on the seventh day he rested. After billions of years man, made in his image and likeness of him, without ever resting, with his secular intelligence, without fear, in the clear sky of an October night, placed other luminaries equal to those who they have been circling since the creation of the world. Amen.
Always for text analysis (type A)
Alberto Moravia with an excerpt from ‘Gli indifferenti’, the masterpiece of the Roman writer, published in 1929.
This is a passage from the song. “Everyone looked at him. “But let’s see, Merumeci”, begged the mother, clasping her hands; “You don’t want to send us away like this on the spot?… Grant us an extension…”. “I have already granted two”; Leo said “that’s enough… especially since it wouldn’t help to avoid the sale…”. “How not to avoid it?” asked the mother. Leo finally raised his eyes and looked at her: “Let me explain: unless you manage to put together eight hundred thousand lire, I don’t see how you could pay except by selling the villa…”. The mother understood, a vast fear opened before her eyes like an abyss; she turned pale, looked at her lover; but Leo, all absorbed in the contemplation of his cigar, did not reassure her: “Does this mean,” said Carla, “that we will have to leave the villa and go and live in an apartment with a few rooms?”. “Yes”, replied Michele, “that’s right”. Silence, her mother’s fear exaggerated, she had never wanted to know about the poor or even know them by name, she had never wanted to admit the existence of people with hard work and a squalid life. “They live better than us,” she had always said; “we have greater sensitivity and greater intelligence and therefore we suffer more than them…”; and now, behold, suddenly, she was forced to mingle, to swell the crowd of the wretched; that same sense of revulsion, of humiliation, of fear that she had felt as she passed one day in a very low car through a menacing and filthy crowd of strikers oppressed her; it wasn’t the hardships and deprivations she was going through that terrified her, but instead the burning of her, the thought of how they would treat her of what people who knew her would say about her, all rich people, esteemed and elegant; she saw herself, well … poor, alone, with those two children of hers, without friendships that ‘everyone would have abandoned her, without entertainment, dances, lights, parties, conversations: complete darkness, naked darkness “.
Students are asked to argue the proposed text with a reflection “on the representation of the bourgeois world as critically outlined by Moravia”, also making reference to other Italian and foreign authors “who have dealt with the theme of the representation of the characters of the bourgeoisie”.
For the Argumentative text (type B)
Federico Chabod, ‘The idea of the nation’. The passage taken from the 1961 work of the great historian recalls that the principle of nationality, one of the driving ideas of the 19th century, was linked to the idea of political freedom, and progressively of independence from foreigners, as in the case of Cavour, and Mazzini is then mentioned with his very close connection between homeland and humanity, which for him “is, essentially, Europe”.
Students are asked to summarize the visions of Cavour and Mazzini according to the passage by Chabod, to explain Mazzini’s phrase “the nation is not an end in itself, on the contrary! It is half the highest, most noble, necessary, but a means, for the fulfillment of the supreme goal: Humanity”, and to reflect “on the value to be attributed to the idea of nation”.
Always for the Argumentative text (type B)
Piero Angela, ‘Ten things I learned’, the last work-testament by Piero Angela published in 2022.
“In this new panorama – reads the passage from Angela’s book submitted to the students – there are changes that stand out more than others. One is the decrease in the relative cost of raw materials and labor compared to “software”, i.e. knowledge, to creativity. This is also happening in certain traditional productions, such as that of cars, but above all for microelectronic products, such as mobile phones, tablets, computers. It has been calculated that as much as 90% of the cost of a computer is represented by software, i.e. from the performance of the brain. So mental processing is becoming the most valuable raw material. The growing ability to innovate is accentuating what economists call ‘creative destruction’, i.e. the exit from the scene of obsolete activities and the entry of other successful ones”.
Students are asked what are the consequences of “creative destruction” and what Angela means by “immaterial wealth”, underlining that in the text the great journalist and popularizer “attributes an essential value to human creativity in the race towards innovation”.
Always for the Argumentative text (type B)
Oriana Fallaci, ‘Interview with history’.
In the passage quoted in the track, which begins with the passage “Is history made by all or by a few? Does it depend on universal laws or on some individuals and that’s it?” the great correspondent deals, among other things, with the themes of the Cold War and the nuclear threat, and even today, it is underlined, “the succession of tensions and conflicts shows no sign of abating, even on our continent”.
The students are asked if “the situation is still today in the terms described by the journalist”.
For the current topic (type C)
Open letter to Minister Bianchi on the Maturity exam. A comment is requested on the open letter to Minister Bianchi on the Maturità exam, the document sent in 2021 by the academic and cultural world to the then Minister of Education, in the midst of the pandemic, to ask for the reintroduction of the written exams at the maturity level, abolished for the risk of contagion. A non-random choice, in conjunction with the return of the exam to the pre-Covid form.
Always for the current topic (type C)
Marco Belpoliti with ‘In praise of waiting in the era of Whatsapp’. The track concerns an article by Marco Belpoliti, published in ‘Repubblica’ on 30 January 2018.
“We no longer know how to wait. Everything has become instantaneous, in ‘real time’, as we have been saying for some years. The key word is: ‘Simultaneous’. I write an email and wait for an immediate response. If it doesn’t arrive, I annoy me: why doesn’t he answer? The exchange of letters in the past – reads the article – was the place of deferred time. The envelopes came and went at a slow pace. Not to mention the instant message systems we use: WhatsApp. Botta and answer. Yet everything around us seems marked by waiting: gestation, adolescence, adulthood. There is a time for everything, and it is never an immediate time”.