by Marco Veruggio
Voices from the student marches in Rome, amid concerns about everyday problems (starting with schools falling apart), anger over the security bill and the disturbing shadows of Gaza.
In Rome on November 15, International Student Day, two marches took place, one organized by the main student unions, the other by the autonomous collectives of some of the main high schools in the capital. Demonstrations in which the students’ slogans and demands seem more or less the same, starting from the cuts in school funds, while the institutes fall to pieces and the rare maintenance works proceed with unforgivable slowness.
Al Thalesthey say, “We have been without a gym for a month and there is a passage that connects two wings of the school which risks collapsing if there are more than ten of us there, not to mention the heating problems: it is 12-13 degrees in the classroom” . Sam Finardi, communications manager for the Knowledge Network, confirms: “It happens all over Italy. In theory the rules provide that lessons are suspended below 18 degrees, but no one applies them.”
“We don’t even have a classroom where we can organize an assembly together, because there is the risk of the floor collapsing”, shouts a student from the megaphone Kepler and adds that the problems of usability and safety also put the realization of his school’s flagship educational projects in doubt. Al Plinyhowever, “a brick fell a few days ago, fortunately without consequences”. Stories that confirm what the Cittadinanzattiva report revealed in September on the state of Italian schools, namely that Lazio is among the most unfortunate regions: 81.3% without usability, 64.7% without static testing and 77.2% without fire prevention.
to high school Teresa Gullacescientific and human sciences, in Quadraro, the eastern outskirts of Rome, the issue of security takes on even more disturbing contours. First the anti-seismic adaptation works in the central headquarters, which began in June, which forced students to teach amidst dust and noise: “Some felt sick because of the dust we breathed.” Then the transfer to the branch with revolutionized timetables and lessons until late afternoon, because the spaces are insufficient to accommodate everyone. On the other hand, observes a group of students, the principals now take all possible enrollments because in the current logic the institutes are in competition with each other and having more students also means having more resources available.
In mid-October, the students decide to occupy the school as a sign of protest, but after a few days they abandon the occupation because the security service is unable to prevent the access of around thirty “outsiders” who enter by force, and they damage the school. The police were notified, but, as the press release on the IG page of the Gullace Collective reported, no one intervened and so the damage continued and the classrooms were even set on fire twice in a few days. Result: two million in damages, unusable classrooms, 1,400 students in DAD, distance learning, indefinitely. “Initially they told us three weeks, but now we don’t know exactly how long it will last and we”, say some students, “this year we have our final exams and we are worried about the consequences on our preparation”. There are those who point the finger at the occupants, accused of having let the situation get out of hand, but more than they believe, the situation escaped the attention of those who should have ensured that the works did not interfere with the lessons.
If the “basic” students seem more worried about everyday problems, slogans and megaphone interventions are more political: “We are all anti-fascists!”, the Security bill, more cited than the new 5 in conduct, the indignation over the genocide in Gaza , taunted the police. “Unlike other demonstrations, today we autonomous collectives are taking to the streets, in particular against the security bill”, explains a student of the collective of Virgilio“because it is a threat to our right to demonstrate and dissent and is in total opposition to the rights enshrined in the Constitution. We hope it helps to wake people up a little, because there is a lot of need for it.”
The theme of war emerges above all in relation to Gaza and in the contradiction between schools that are falling apart and “the money that can always be found to build tanks and warplanes”. And militarization? Students sent on school-work alternation to NATO barracks and bases? Doesn’t the episode reported by a Genoese student – police officers teaching her classmates to use a truncheon against a rubber dummy – scare you? Aren’t you afraid of being indoctrinated to be ready to fight?
“I was struck by the attacks by the Israeli armed forces on Unifil in Lebanon, where there were also Italian soldiers and I thought that one day I could be there too” replies a Kepler student. “We don’t perceive a work of indoctrination on the part of our teachers”, says a group of Pliny’s students, “but the problem is that in school we don’t talk enough about today’s world”. “I think that today there are all the tools to resolve every dispute with diplomacy, not with wars”, observes one, “I would like to vote to count for something, but if I could I wouldn’t know who to vote for, because I don’t identify with any party” .
“As student unions we are concerned about the growing use of PCTOs as a tool for the militarization of schools, but also about teaching programs that involve collaboration between schools and companies in the military sector, in particular Leonardo”, adds Sam Finardi. Fondazione Leonardo and Treccani Scuola recently launched Outreacha project to support scientific subjects. There is a platform on which teachers can find educational material, but the Foundation’s IG page (“Let’s explore the STEM world. Captivating, educational and free content for new generations”) to informative content for students (“Let’s talk about mathematics” ) also combines interventions from the Italian Intelligence Society and other strategic study centers on topics that have little to do with science (“the importance of controlling the seabed where telecommunications cables run”).
The season of occupations could provide an opportunity for a greater number of students than those in the square on Friday to engage more deeply with these issues. The fact remains that, as some students told us, current events should be the subject of debate in classrooms even during ordinary school activities. Perhaps this in their eyes would also make it less necessary to occupy their own school.
[Da Roma Report]
