Courageous and determined certainly, mature perhaps. We are talking about the three Venetian students who decided to make a silent scene at the final exam as a sign of protest. A sort of mutiny against the examination board who, according to them, would have had a very severe yardstick in correcting the written Greek test. Reading the facts, as told by the protagonists themselves and the scoreboards displayed, the correction of the Greek test would have seen only 4 sufficiencies out of the 14 students in the class. According to the three Venetian girls, disagreements, even personal ones, between the two examiners of ancient literature, external Greek and internal Latin, would have produced this unfortunate result that would not correspond at all to the real preparation of the boys.
There are many considerations that could be made, but I think it’s important to remember some elements about how the final exam takes place. The commission is made up of 6 commissioners (three internal and three external) and a president who must guarantee balance, respect for the ordinance and transparency in carrying out the exam. The written tests are graded collectively and are based on evaluation grids contained in the class document. This document collects all the students’ information and their progress over the last three years of school, which also corresponds to the school credit accumulated over time, up to a maximum of 40 points. This mechanism was introduced in 1997 precisely to try to prevent the final evaluation of the state exam from not recognizing the entire progress made by the student.
Before that year, no student who wanted to be promoted would have been able to afford the silent scene like Lidia and her classmates.. They, however, benefiting from both sufficient written tests and good credit, were able to afford this choice: it was enough to show up, sign and even wait in silence for the end of the oral exam. It was worth it? Was it corrected? It certainly offers the opportunity to reflect further on the imperfect mechanisms of exams and evaluation., but it should never be forgotten that the exam is the photograph of a moment, a snapshot that sometimes does not correspond to the knowledge, skills and maturity of the person being examined. The emotion of the moment, a test that is very different from those carried out during the year and much more can alter the result. The unfortunate commission, at this point, can do nothing but record it.
If students and families think that things went differently, they can ask for access to the documents and report in the appropriate venues and with the most effective means of communication if there were formal and material errors. What amazes me is that an athlete like Lidia, who knows well how a small pain, a small indisposition or an argument with her boyfriend can compromise a performance, decided to take such a head-on route before reviewing the replay. Then maybe the judge or referee also had a hand in it, but they will not have completely determined the result.
Cover photo Ansa
