9th: Describe a person who is important for your Country.

In 2005, during a dull and lazy summer, I bought a small book, I didn't want to read anything too big.
I chose "Lettera a una professoressa", "Letter To A Teacher", written by a group of students of the school of Barbiana.

In one of the first pages of that book, one of the students, Luigi, told us that he was talking to an inspector. The inspector was criticising the length of the school day, because, he said, "...children need sports and relax...". Luigi answered that "...the school will be always better than shit!" Obviously, the inspector didn't understand it, but the fact was that after school Luigi worked on a farm, employed as animal care: to help his family, he cleaned stabs and tools.

After the second WW, the economic situation in Italy was tough for a lot of people, mostly for the poorer in the countryside or in the mountain villages. The school was compulsory for children aged between 6 and 14 but, after the primary, most of the poorer children had to leave the school because they had to work or because the school was too far from their house. In that situation, the condition of their life couldn't improve and a poor stay poor, and their children as well. In that context, Father Lorenzo Milani, a priest born in a wealthy family, decided that was his duty to do something. He opened a small school in a mountain village called Barbiana.

He noticed that the children of poor families failed very often their school exams because the school syllabus was designed thinking of "Pierino" the beloved child of the doctor of the village, not of Giovanni, the fourth son of an illiterate peasant living in the middle of nowhere. When Pierino started school, he was able to speak Italian very well, he knew English because of his nanny, he had visited a number of museums, theatres and cities, therefore he could benefit of the lessons. When Giovanni started school, he didn't speak Italian but only his father's dialect, so he couldn't understand lessons and homework, and, after a few years of the unuseful school, he quitted.
Don Milani said that "...a school like that is like a hospital that heals the healthy and rejects the sicks" and it didn't help people to fill the gaps. His school, on the contrary, was differently designed: open 9 or 10 hours per day, 7/7, without holidays. No one was rejected, the older taught the younger, firstly Italian because without our language it would be impossible to understand other people and defend ourselves, then the other languages because poor people from everywhere have the right to understand each other, geography and history to understand where we are and why we have arrived here. Etcetera. But the most important thing was that no one went ahead if there was someone who hadn't understood. The school of Barbiana was designed for taking care of the weaker, no matter how many hours or days were necessary.

The Don Milani's theory received a lot of criticism, firstly because it told the government that it didn't do enough for the people in need, and secondly, because of the cost of that kind of school. At the same time, the school asked itself if it would be possible to do something in order to make school more appropriate for less educated people, and the answer was yes. In the following decades, governments have made a number of improvements, because of Don Milani (and the '68, of course...).

Which changes have governments made? For example, the most difficult subjects have been cancelled from the curriculum of most schools, (i.e. Latin...), other syllabi have been modified. Currently, it is forbidden to reject children from primary schools and, from the "scuola media" (children aged between 11 and 14) it is possible to make students repeat a year only if all the teachers of the child and his family agree.
The result is that children are not rejected from school, but they aren't better educated than in the past (more or less). The richest are as advantaged as in the past because, if the school is not able to prepare them for universities or professions they like, families would pay for extracurricular activities: courses, trips, museums...

Are those reforms useful?
Let numbers tell us.

Pupils who achieve top grades at the 14 yo exam:
children of parents with a master degree: 29%
children of parents with a secondary school: 17%
children of parents without any diploma: 11% (ALMADIPLOMA 2007)
If those reforms had been useful, the percentage above would have been the same.

People between 30 and 59 years old with a Master Degree:
20% have parents without any degree (but parents without a degree is 95%)
80% have parents with a Master degree (but parents with a degree is 5%) (OCSE 2015)
If those reforms had been useful, the percentage of the people with a degree would have been the same as their parents.

That numbers indicate that families are more important than schools for the success of education.

Obviously, there is something wrong. But what is wrong: Don Milani's theory or its application?

I believe that the school has to be:
open for many hours per day, as a normal job day is: 9 to 17, with one lunch break in the middle e two short breaks every two hours;
it has to last many years, maybe for children aged between 6 and 18 yo: by 18 yo, pupils will, hopefully, have understood which career undertake or which university begin;
completely free;
very difficult, because children have the right to learn as much as possible.
Teachers have to be chosen among the very best graduates and formed pedagogically and didactically, remunerated with excellent salaries because that carrier has to attract the best people in the countries.

And, most important, the school has to consider the different talents of everyone, because, as Einstein said, everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that is stupid.

8th: What is success?

Success is a matter of age.
At 6, success is being able to obey mum and dad for a couple of months before Christmas and obtain that red bicycle you have seen!
At 14 is finding the right way to convince your parents that, although you are only a teenager, you can go to the concert with your BFF next Sanday evening: using the right words, logically, without crying, negotiating, as every adult does, issues like money, transports, time... and at the end make your parents push your plan through.
At 17 is capitalising on many years of hard work at the gym and catch your coveted classmate's attention.
At 18 is obtaining excellent marks at the A level exams and gain an offer from Oxford.
At 24 is a well-payed job.
At 30 is, maybe, being recognised as the very best in your field.
At 33 is being able to buy the house of your dream and start a family.
At 40 is, sometimes, winning a professional prize and progress in your career.
At 55 success is having the opportunity to see your kids gaining a place at Oxford.
At 65 is having the possibility of retiring tranquilly, with enough money and health for enjoying time with some excellent friends and the companion of your life.
At 70 is becoming grandparents.
And after that? For my granny, who died at 98, success was having all her grandchildren gathered around her coffin the day of her funeral. And so it was.
To be honest, I believe that success is everything makes you happy and only the right balance of private and professional achievements could bring happiness. Otherwise, every success is limping.