The return of Latin to the middle school wanted by Valditara is useless and classy
I loved Latin and Greek for all my five years of high school, also because thanks to the excellent votes that I took in the translation of the versions I could allow myself to live on income in the most difficult subjects to me, and after high school this familiarity with the dead languages I He led to a job – that of a repetition teacher – decidedly less tiring and more profitable than other jobs held during the university.
The renewed attention to the language of our ancestors established by the new indications of the Minister of Education Giuseppe Valditara, therefore, brought me back to the times when Castiglioni and Mariotti (such as Montanari, who fortunately was supplanted the feared rock in Greek) was A faithful ally of school successes.
Certainly the return of Latin to middle schools (but there were no longer the optional courses that existed in my time?), Which engraved today are called first grade secondary schools, responds to an ideological choice, and if a joke is allowed Let’s say that the alleged Roman greeting of Musk is perhaps a sign of approval of the Valditara reform, but if we want to face the question seriously it must be said that as it was decided, the return of the idiom of Cicero and Cesare is a move as political as it is useless . And also classist, but not in the sense of classrooms.
The Latin in the process of school extinction
In my middle school class of a working neighborhood we were about twenty: we were in six or seven to take the optional course. I only aspiring classical high school student, the others and others about to enroll in the scientific.
All the others, those who would not have had Latin as a subject in the technical, industrial and professional institutes in which they would go (and those who would stop at the third grade) did not even think about a further burden, another Matter to be studied, moreover not mandatory.
Since then, the small and large school reforms that have followed one another in thirty years have even – or tempora, or Mores! – Created high school courses without Latin. That in my eyes it is like saying football games without ball, but I can understand the bogeyman of a difficult language such as Latin (or worse the Greek) in the mind of a fourteen year old who can choose to jump on the foot.
So what is the point of reintroducing Latin courses at middle school, if less and less students do it then in high school, if after becoming a dead (or silent) language is now also in the way of school extinction? Well, in this sense the political move of Valditara makes perfect sense: a conservative government necessarily pays close attention to the traditions and roots of the country.
And for heaven’s sake, it is also there. I am not here to underline the obvious, that is, in the current society, perhaps more hours of computer, English and, considered the level of our students (including) in scientific subjects, perhaps should be insisted on materials such as mathematics, biology, Physics, astronomy, chemistry, economics and finance. In short, it is fine that we are a people of humanists, but perhaps we should remedy our gaps instead of boasting us of our refractoryness to the hard sciences.
Okay, it’s true, but this is not the problem of the return of Latin to the middle school wanted by Valditara. The problem is that it is optional.
Rather, we make Latin in the average mandatory
If it is believed that it is important to know the language and culture from which ours derive, if you are convinced that Sallustio and Orazio’s study is essential to understand the words we use every day. If, to use an an abused expression, we believe that Latin is useful for the form mentis that its study generates in students, then because you do not have the courage to bring your reasoning to extreme consequences and therefore make mandatory for everyone Latin in middle school?
For those who will make the high school, for those who will make the high school-latino, for those who will make the hotel, for those who go to itis, for those who will make accounting, for those who choose the school to become a surveyor, for whom He does not want to continue studies beyond compulsory school. For everyone.
Because of the two: O we think that the study (word that derives from the verb studiowhich means to aspire, desire, to have passion for something) of Latin serves to enrich the minds of our children by teaching them the linguistic and cultural foundations of our country, thus also favoring a full integration between families of different social backgrounds and also among the children of immigrants, and then it is not clear why not make such a didactic tool mandatory.
Or the sense of the return of Latin to middle school is only to offer support to the children of the highest social classes and to the few others willing (as well as volunteers) who, by parental choice or their own, have accepted the gallows (word from Latin etymology Rather macabre) of Latin to high school. With the real risk of recreating that separation between social classes that was tangible in Italian schools when the children of the rich they did the gymnasium and those of the poor at 11 years old were already directed towards the professional starts.
Of course, it can be objected that making it compulsory matter would force those who really want to study it to “wait” to the others who would study it unwillingly. And then, as my experience shows, not only the children of the rich can excel in such a subject.
But if Valditara wanted to reintroduce Latin to middle school to affirm the centrality of our history and culture in our society, wouldn’t it be better to make everyone study Latin?
I understand that putting the mandatory Latin back to middle school in 2025 would expose criticism and derision not entirely without foundation. But if the minister fears to be made fun of, remember: Cotidie Damnatur Qui Semper Timet.