All things begin and end. It also happens at the “Monti” high school, where two days ago it was not only the director Simonetta Bini, at the end of the last teachers’ college of the season, who greeted the school staff. Manuela Biondi, the vice-principal, Giovanna Casalboni, Franca Solfrini, Luana Mazzoli, historic teachers of the school, Patrizia Papi, director of general and administrative services, and Eugenio Sanasi, school collaborator, also said goodbye and retired.
Seven pillars of the school leave the “Monti” in one fell swoop, amidst smiles and hugs. After the meeting of the teachers’ board, which was held in the school gym, each of them brought their greetings to colleagues and friends, who all gathered together in a celebration of thanks for their work and their dedication to the school .
Luana Mazzoli
«I arrived at “Monti” 25 years ago, therefore in the other millennium, and the teachers from that distant school year are still Professor Bazzocchi, Professor Fiorani and Professor Solfrini – the science teacher began in her farewell speech Luana Mazzoli – The teaching staff then had no more than 24 colleagues, while today we are almost 200. We met in the teachers’ lounge, all sitting around an oval table of light wood. In 25 years I have seen four different people sitting on the presidential bench, each with his character, each with his own way of understanding management. The best, like Professor Bini, understood it as a function and not as an exercise of pure and personal power. In my way of seeing things, without conscious intention, without desire and passion, nothing can exist and sustain itself. So I leave this high school urging you to protect it, maintain it, think about it, dream about it and make it grow. Protect the “Monti” high school from narcissism, from those who think it can be the arena to exercise their big ego and thus cover their fragilities. Protect him from disloyalty and above all from those who place the “I” and not the “we” at the center of everything. Us, because our high school is a community. Protect it from those who don’t believe in inclusiveness. Live it with dignity and grace. And above all, do it always keeping in mind that they are at the center, the students, the kids. It’s about dreaming for them, seeing what they can become. It was worth being a teacher, even just for this, and I am grateful to life for having been a teacher at “Monti” and, I remember, also at San Patrignano, which I still hold in my heart today.”
Franca Solfrini
Franca Solfrini, an English teacher for generations of students at the “Monti”, also wanted to greet her colleagues with fond memories, not only of her as a teacher but also as a former student of the “Monti”. «I’ve spent more than half my life in here: 38 years. I joined in 1973 as a student and returned in 1991 as a teacher. I still remember the strong emotion in climbing those stairs worn by generations of students, trembling with expectations and hopes. The emotions mixed with those of the role I had left a few years ago and with the one I was about to undertake, together with my new colleagues, who had been my high school teachers: the Greek and Latin teacher Giobbe Gentili, the Italian teacher Giangiacomo Magalotti and the history and philosophy professor Pietro Castagnoli, who had then become my principal. They taught us classical beauty, the importance of reasoning and not forgetting. I have to recall a woman: the high school literature teacher, Giovanna Lucchi. For me, the future senator Lucchi carried out a great task of education, not only scholastic but of citizenship, and therefore, of openness towards the world and life. When I graduated from high school, I told myself I would never be a teacher. However, life has some unexpected surprises in store for you: I was a teacher, even if a bit unique. One of my students once told me that I didn’t look like a teacher and was a little hesitant in expressing this opinion of him: he was afraid of offending me. I thanked him, because I have never reflected myself in a certain type of teacher. For me, the most important thing about our work is the students: we need to establish contact with them and then we start working. Because ours is the most beautiful job in the world.”
Giovanna Casalboni
Another historic English teacher who said goodbye to her colleagues after 20 years at the “Monti” is Giovanna Casalboni, who in her farewell underlined that in these many years she has “been able to reconcile work and teaching with my great passion and interest in English literature. And when your job is also your passion, it’s like you never feel the weight of having worked, in a way. For this I have to thank the school.”
