Galimberti, recipe: “Selected teachers with personality tests, parents expelled from school e 12 pupils in class "

 

"Philosophy must be extended to all schools and included in the first grade". The school, Furthermore, “Should take advantage of Covid to make structural investments that change it forever, how to reduce pupils per class: no more than twelve, if he really wants to educate our young people. More and more nihilists, deprived of the future and induced to live at night or to take drugs and drink because during the day no one recognizes them ". And the teachers?

They should be selected with personality tests to prevent teachers unable to teach and passionate from ruining in 40 years of career the life of entire generations of students”. Umberto Galimberti at the Philosophy Festival underway in Modena, Carpi and Sassuolo. In front of the crowded public in the distance version in the huge Piazza dei Martiri in Carpi, the philosopher addressed the topic of technology within the concept of "machines", which was the leitmotif of the Edition 2021 of the Modena Festival, now in its seventeenth edition. An edition that falls in a period that has seen the death of many philosophers, da Bodei a Gregory, from Giorello to Vegetti and which pushes Galimberti to wonder if philosophy is dead too.

She's dead - he explains - but he will rise again under one condition, that you remain a thinking community”. As knowledge is not enough, Galimberti continues, “lknowledge gives us science, but it is philosophy that holds the function of questioning the knowledge and ideas we have, we must not lose the habit of thinking”And to question what is served to us. And in this we must practice from an early age, that's why - explains the philosopher, who in the past was also a teacher in high schools - "philosophy must be extended to all schools and included in the first grade, since thinking is not optional”.

And instead? “Instead, the aim is to eliminate philosophy from schools and unfortunately the study of Greek will also be abolished”. The rest, what is the use of philosophy Aristotle was asked. “And Aristotle replied: it is useless because philosophy is not a servant”. Instead, philosophy comes to the aid of thinking humanity, especially in a period that rewards the primacy of the technique. “But the technique does not open scenarios of salvation, does not tell the truth”, Galimberti warns in front of a speechless audience.

We”, goes on, “we no longer have the opportunity to choose when faced with the dictates of technology. I cannot choose whether to have or not have a computer or a mobile phone. As you download its new products on the market, you have to buy them, social exclusion penalty. We cannot exempt ourselves. If the world takes place in the network, I cannot detach myself from the network”. Galimberti underlines the ancillary role of politics. “Technique decides how things are done - observes - but it is politics that should decide if certain things are done. But politics looks to the economy and the economy is not the last decision-making authority because the economy looks to technology, which in turn entices the economy in its investments. So it is the technique that decides, not politics and not even democracy. Which is not just the exercise of the vote, but above all the reduction of waiting lists in the hospital, nurseries to free women”.

The technique for its part allows those who manage it to feel extraneous to any profile of responsibility for the damage it does, a bit like the Nazis who just said they felt okay with their conscience because they limited themselves to following orders. A bit like the teachers at school, Galimberti protests: “as long as they make their plans and they are okay even if they have never looked their students in the face. The clinical look is over, as for doctors who must obey protocols if they want to save themselves from any profile of responsibility, if you are an official you have to do what they tell you”.

But let's get back to the young. “Try asking young people what the future is. For us it was a certainty, for example, the certainty of finding a job immediately after graduation. For them the future is a threat. When I graduated I knew I would be teaching within two years, today it is certainly not so for them. If they drink and drink, they do it and live at night it is because during the day those who call them by name? Who takes them into consideration?" But yet, “they have the maximum of their strength come on 15 years. They have the maximum of sexual potency but cannot procreate before 35 years. They have the maximum mental power at that age. Because we don't use the great potential they have in their head? The creative moment is at that age ". Here is the primary source of widespread nihilism, “Misses the purpose: because I have to commit myself? Why do I have to live?”.

And here is the role of the school. “The school should not have only education as its goal. The mind does not open if the heart does not open. How many of us studied some disciplines a lot thanks to the fact that they had fascinating teachers and how many of us studied little or nothing because they hated some other professors? For the school to work, first of all it must educate which means bringing back to the emotional and sentimental order. Otherwise we remain at the instinctual level. Feelings are learned, they are cultural gifts. Our grandmothers told us the stories and in those stories they saw good and evil. We need to reintroduce literature into schools, dealing with suicide, with joy. If you internalize concepts like joy, suicide, despair, passion, you are polite, and you avoid doing the tragic things that we periodically witness: what kind of society we are building?

But the school, and this Galimberti has been repeating for years as a mantra by now, “it should not have classes with more than 30 pupils otherwise it means that he has decided he does not intend to educate. Classes must not be more than twelve, thirteen people and the school should take advantage of Covid to make structural investments that change it forever. The fact that we have few ministers is because no one cares about school ". Not just small classes. Galimberti challenges the teacher recruitment system. Which, according to him, have not played, in their path, developmental psychology studies: "They deal with people of that age and know nothing about psychology?”.

Moreover, according to the philosopher, they cannot teach people who are not passionate about students and who in 40 years of career ruin entire generations: “I have no problem appreciating a charismatic professor who plagiarizes the classes - need - but those who ruin the students must be penalized. There are people who lead to suicide, because they add negative elements to other negative elements already present in the heads and in the existence of the children. Teachers with personality tests should be selected, it is necessary to verify if the teacher has passion and if he is able to excite”.

The parents, from them, “they must be expelled from school because their presence prevents the boy from taking on his responsibilities. Parents are interested in promotion and the teacher to avoid summer issues in front of the Tar ends up promoting everyone. But in this way a meritocratic structure is not built. In Italy we are still citizens, we are still related. And until it comes to merit, we won't have any civil society. This is my school reform but it will never happen