Good evening I want to tell you the story
of the dream of another school the school
penny wirton for teaching
of Italian to immigrants
how this school was born like
the idea was born of re – establishing it I have to
go back the moment I was
child will have been around eight years in
romagna
I asked my grandmother what the hell was
this woman who did not even have
studied he told me something that is me
remained inside looks at images of having to
collect waste paper from the ground
dirty and put them in a box without
bottom that never fills one
curse
that will be hell then me
I was probably baffled
a little sad
then she added perhaps to console me
another decisive sentence
look at that if you and rarely do you deal
so you will not go with humans
in hell you will go to heaven
it meant this to believe that all of them
human encounters we make
they can be lost in their own right
as like those paper that we would have
had to collect from the ground and put in
this in this bottomless box
think not of the result that we
we could hold but have faith
in the action we are doing
if you only think about the result risks
You do not have to be disappointed
slave of this result that you can
to have faith in what you are
realizing here of course as a child
I could not believe the meaning of this
what in the ocher years I grew up are
became a teacher and writer
I worked 30 years in the institutes
professional for the industry and
the crafts in front of guys that
really after ten minutes they were losing
attention and therefore I have been used to it
to retrieve them, he attracted them to find some
resources their that the school does not
he was able to realize and therefore to do
this of course I had to work
even inside myself understand where from
I came my mother who risked it
die during the second war
world following the shooting of
my grandfather a partisan of the 36th
brigata garibaldi alessandro bianconcini
that my grandfather was shot by the Nazis
my mother at 17
captured by the fascists delivered
Germans put on a train that would have it
conducted in the camps managed to escape
you love me at the age of 17 at the station
udine and salt had failed to
escape probably neither me nor mine
brother we would never be born my father a
illegitimate child he never knew
his father is an abandoned child
without reference points
when I asked my parents but
how did you survive
in the post-war Italy they me
they responded inadequately and
inadequate for me so I heard from
small the lack of words are
It was at the bottom of a well thinking
barbiana boy like those children ai
which was addressed to Don Lorenzo Milan
when it was confined to that hermitage
ecclesiastical precisely in the Apennines
just don lorenzo milani and I dedicated
my last book called man
of the future and I really believe adonia from don
lorenzo milani at the end I thought in the
the moment I entered the first one
time in a classroom and there in
that moment that I really understood of
to be inside the magnetic space to understand
that I really had to talk to mine
inner ghosts even before that with
difficult teenagers with whom
I had daily to do
and the moment I went there
city of the boys was for me it is
the city of boys is very important
a structure created by monsignor carole
bing after the second world war
to welcome abandoned children i
sciuscià who no longer had the points
reference of parents is there that
I met omar faris calik francisca
I met these underage boys
unaccompanied from there some have been born
my books one titled just the
city of the boys in which he tells a story
trip to morocco to see from where
they were leaving or sea making mine mine
another students in gambia in africa
where brought back drops that which
he did not know if his mother was alive or not
dead
born in Sierra Leone forced to flee
we have some way recovered I have them
I put my hand on his hand
to show him how to write
he illiterate of the mother tongue
so he never held a pen in it
hand I wrote them another life book
of life in which precisely the journey of
return that when the moment when
we really have this mother
reassuredly found in Gambia
he wanted his professor
of Italian I went to meet her and
to the city of guys I thought
together with my wife anna lou cerenzia
church we say like me and teacher
uneasy dissatisfied
not happy with the school as it is
today enter the classroom explain the
plan a frontal lesson like
I’m doing this now
and putting the vote no can not be
only this school must
be something different
in the meantime it must be an intersection of
looks to take care of
because the professor is responsible
of the gaze of others
exactly as Dostoevskij said in the
when he claimed one
responsibility that could not be
only legal could not be
only social could not be
only moral
you must take charge of the look
of the people in front of you
so we all did maybe
we will manage to change people not
certainly the world that is impossible but the
people get one 1 to 1
there is born the penny wirton school that
it takes its name
the title from the title of a novel by
silvio d’arzo great Italian writer
who wrote a book called
penny wirton and his mother a protagonist
abandoned child who never knew
his father, both my wife and I are here
we therefore have graduates on silvio d’arzo
decided to call the penny school like that
wirton for teaching Italian
immigrants conceived in the dream of don
lorenzo milani 1 to 1 therefore without class
without votes without directors without
bureaucracies
here this is our dream
penny wirton school that was born in Rome
hundreds of volunteers working
free and then subtract in
some ways are distinguished from the
our time is a retributive time
I give you
and you give me no we give regardless
from what we can get seen
that we do not have financial dimension e
so we believe in the action we are
doing exactly as my own said
grandmother rosina patullo to which at the bottom
we reconnect the idea of benetton
It is born right in the moment when I have
understood that we could get involved
our children too
even our kids , ours too
oceans once I understood it just the
city of boys when I had a
giulio giulio boy rejected first
higher than the scientific high school
rebutted at the nautical institute for the
second time we have described all
institute carlo cattaneo of rome and it was
to be rejected by us and me too
I was trying to get it back to this guy
I saw that it was intelligent that it was
who had unexpected gifts
he wrote in a particular way he had
a syntactic sensitivity that no one
he could have taught him exactly
like blue eyes
I mean those genetic skills no
so why they all rejected it
then I have one day at recreation
called and I played everything in that
I told him giulio right now but why
You do not come with me this afternoon
just got out of school to teach
Italian to pennies immigrants
Wirton looked at me a little early
lost but because you do not ask him to
giorgio who has 8 in Italian this thing
but because I do not ask Marco
that ‘s okay at school they say why them
they do not need me is you that if you
now I would say yes, in short, it will give me
an important answer
he said look I will not tell you
answer I’ll tell you the day after the
afternoon I was thinking about what
he would have said giulio himself
rejected the undisciplined and rebellious
rabid the restless thing would have me
said the next day he came to me
said look I want to do this test a
come to you a whole year has come
giulio every tuesday afternoon ad
teach Italian for free
arusha dura or mara faris the same
boy rejected the same boy
discarded by the evaluation system that he
the same in the first place has been refused
seated in front of his coetani
immigrants 16 17 years the nannies of these
barcelona terrorists
an adolescent left alone is a
risk
we must take care of these
take care of these guys I see giulio
in front of them
to this to this his age him so
I understood that the penny wirton school
he could have a future
we have succeeded so many in these years
I was my wife, 22 professors
willingly we are about 2 300 people
only in Rome 30 locations throughout Italy
from Sicily to the Friulian people who
they come into play that they enter
action that create posts
vitalities that attract energy into
this country
which is a lot but much nicer than
what makes us see television
every day I discover every day
new people with resources
special people who come into action
in this in this educational action 1 1
we wrote a book called
Italians we too have my wife
he also wanted to organize an instrument
educational with two volumes one red and one
blue published by the margin of trento
we use this this this tool
educational together with others
ludo teaching words systems
colored snakes patterns and I assure you
that when you find these
boys who arrive and arrive
willing to understand that this is the
compensation that you look for yesterday I made a
I will meet this point more to curtain
known some teachers of
limana who founded a penny
wirton here not far from here and they have me
told the story of a boy a
boy they Senegalese who became
walk from Belluno to Limana for
let’s say that we have this lesson
he understood it was a special lesson
a lesson is precious
a lesson he could use in
absolutely free way all for
he would have been the teacher who did not
it was paid that it was not distributed that
he was there just for him
and then it was done on foot but this a
this path
I thought we said the testimony
extraordinary of what it could
being that could become ours
world
we as Italians have one
fundamental historical responsibility
important we have to get in the head
of Europe because we are not alone
the southern border in the sense
geographical but we should and could be
the witness of Europe as seen from
we are born the renaissance from us is
born urbanism and we can not think
that to dictate the orders are of the
obscure main street bureaucrats
we who have been
the spiritual sons of francesco petrarca
thank you good evening
[Applause]
”
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