In the last few days, the decision of a Paduan student and a Belluno student has been reported to refuse to take the oral examination of the maturity (then there was a third case in Treviso). They presented themselves regularly, guaranteeing the promotion, but they chose to make a change scene. Instead of answering the commissioners’ questions, they exhibited the reasons for their choice, also obtaining a constructive comparison with the Commission. A comparison that, from an educational and training point of view, is worth more than a thousand ends. Many on social media have accused them of being lazy, opportunistic or simply rude. But personally, in the arguments they exposed they, I see much more awareness and maturity than you often find among adults. In both cases reported by the press, what these young people wanted to question was the evaluation system based on numerical votes. An educational tool that appears year after year increasingly obsolete, and that many countries have already overcome or reformed.

A human relationship

Overcoming the quantitative vote does not necessarily mean eliminating it, but reducing its weight and reconsidering its meaning within the training course. The number should always be joined by a qualitative feedback, which in turn should be communicated within a human and authentic relationship between teacher and student. Otherwise, if the vote is interpreted only as a coercive tool to force to study, or worse, as a punitive means to humiliate those who cannot, then we have already failed. Unfortunately, many teachers do not have adequate socio-emotional skills to establish psychoeducative ties that go beyond the role of mere information transmitters. Yet, in the era of the Internet and artificial intelligence, the information is everywhere and easily accessible. The school should therefore focus on something else: on the transversal formation of the young man, with particular attention to the motivational dimension. In other words, the main objective of the school today should be to help children discover their personal predispositions, thus promoting the development of an intrinsic motivation.

Individuals ready for the “War of Labor”

If, on the other hand, the school continues to worry only to train individuals ready for the “War of Labor”, to economic success or, for the less ambitious, in the permanent place, then it inevitably loses meaning in today’s world. Young people are clearly telling us, with a peaceful, intelligent and effective protest, which challenges and unmasks the system created by adults, exploiting the same rules and highlighting their logical contradictions. If a student arrives at the oral already knowing that he is promoted, what sense does that exam has? If the whole school path was built on extrinsic reasons (fear of the bad vote, the note, the rejection) we cannot be surprised if, these pressures fail, the motivation dissolves. Their protest is an act of great maturity and civic sense.

The protest

Those who protest do it because they have schools more than those who frequent it passively, without ever questioning their mechanisms. These guys have given up a potentially better vote, which perhaps would have been comfortable in a competition or in a test, to send a much more powerful message: we students are not taxable persons to be tamed with votes, but active, thinking, and ready to fight for what we believe.