LECCE – 500 students from the Giulietta Banzi Banzoli high school in Lecce today joined the strike called by the Basic Collective to protest against the failure to respond to the continuous requests for dialogue and communication.
In an audience of 1800 people, the students complain about the absence of shared plans that make the school a more inclusive environment.
The strike became necessary after the teachers’ failure to cooperate in implementing projects which, such as self-management, would have promoted a sense of belonging and solidarity among students as well as promoting individual and collective responsibility and a constructive dialogue between the various bodies that participate in the educational institution. The attitude of some teachers towards every initiative put forward by the student community in considering them “wastes of time”, to name a few, has forced students to consider the strike as the only means to make their voice heard and to obtain a concrete response to requests. The event took place regularly from 9 to 12 in front of the main entrance of the Banzi high school. A peaceful and colorful sit with banners and signs and an appeal shared by the students: give us a voice again!
“We want a school where our concerns and requests are adequately listened to by the teaching staff, we read in the manifesto of the Base Collective. Everyone always talks about the “school of the future”. Cutting-edge interactive whiteboards are installed in the classrooms, we study the Italian Constitution and are educated in “active citizenship”. They teach us that it is the right and duty of a good citizen to inform themselves and consciously make the choices that affect their lives. Many Banzi students are already old enough to vote for the political representatives who administer the country, others will soon be able to do so. But how can one complain about abstentionism at an all-time high if attempts at active participation in student life are already being discouraged? School of the future on paper, and yet, we are denied the comparison. We are treated like infants, considered like children, as if we are unable to take responsibility for our actions or do not understand their weight. There is much criticism of the lack of communication caused by social media, but perhaps we don’t realize that it has also infiltrated the school fabric: there is no listening, there is no discussion. The school is an ecosystem, a self-sufficient organism that requires all its parts to function optimally. We students go to school too, it’s our second home. Just as the hierarchy of the “pater familias” has been abolished in the family, even at school we should move away from this type of retrograde and anachronistic mentality which sees students as subservient to teachers’ decisions, without any say in the matter. If this is the school of the future that they offer us, an assembly line to produce efficient workers and in which the main concern is “wasting hours”, perhaps we need to demonstrate that an alternative is possible and that a truly innovative school is only possible in cooperation”.
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