Davide, one step away from graduation, has decided to end his life.
I met Davide because he attended the Institute where I was the contact person for students with special needs, whom I met to understand how the school could enable them to give the best of themselves without continually making them feel wrong.
I never succeeded with Davide: he didn’t want to be “different” he didn’t want “privileges”. He wanted to be THE best, not the privileged. Yes, because school makes those who use dispensatory and compensatory measures feel this way. Their results are always considered the result of a privilege, of an extra map, of one less exercise, of a planning of checks. At school the test moment MUST be scary, because if you’re scared you study like crazy, if you’re scared you try your hardest. This, perhaps, is what teachers think. This, perhaps, was what they experienced first as students.
Davide underwent this schooling, he never wanted to escape from these dynamics because this was the only way to deny the small deficits that made him Davide, together with his qualities. I remember him as a tense boy, who never gave up control, who didn’t want help, who didn’t want “it to be known”, but in every meeting with him I felt tired from that incessant struggle. I was afraid that one day it would collapse, because a human being cannot fight himself unless… by killing himself.
I chose early retirement because in 20 years I have not managed to sow anything at school, given that the teacher/pupil relational climate is always the same. There are good, excellent teachers everywhere, but no one becomes salt, the school contains the antibodies within itself, it allows those teachers to be good within the closed world of their classrooms, but the teachers’ colleges, the managers, the MIUR anesthetize, if they don’t actually kill, who would like to bring teaching back to the fruitful place of learning: the relationship.
Enrico Galliano, Alessandro D’Avenia, Daniela Lucangeli, Andrea Canevaro, Luisa Re, Tito Olivato, Laura Taccone, Elide Casati and many others, well-known and lesser-known teachers, loved, followed, some as if they were Hollywood stars…. Where do their words end up after millions of teachers have listened to them… after hundreds of colleagues have shared the same teaching staff?
Ernestina Morello, in Turin, in a high school, has chosen not to bully her students, but to help them read their performances, to understand mistakes rather than underline them, to look for the key to overcoming them within the error . She accompanies the students in their growth without them having to bear the anxiety of a number that can never contain everything about that student/person in a test. The school “accepted” that SHE operated like this, and for this reason the manager who allows her to do so is defined as “enlightened”. If anxiety crushes and does not make Ernestina’s, Alessandro’s, Enrico’s students grow, why is it acceptable to think that other students, of other teachers, should be conditioned by it? Ah… yes, freedom of teaching!
Hi Davide, I won’t come to your funeral, I can’t make it… your death has brought to the surface, once again, the pain for all the pain that school causes, which cannot be compensated for with happiness, enthusiasm, growth is strength, which is able to give… because all this should be normal, while it is still an exception.
Chiara Carabelli
Many people find it difficult and embarrassing to talk about suicide: the sense of shame that can accompany these thoughts can be strong. These emotions can be even stronger if you think about confiding in relatives and friends. It may be easier to talk about it with those who are not directly involved.
If you feel you need it, you can call the toll-free number 800 334343, active 24 hours a day: it is the service also activated by the Veneto Region (when answered there is a short recorded message, immediately afterwards the operator answers). Another service is that of Telefono Amico, active from 10am to midnight, every day of the year: the number is 02 23272327
