Let’s try to
imagine a university without students... Now read the letter and you will
understand why the students were stricken by an acute form of demotivation.
"Sing me, o
Goddess, the wrath of Peleus Achilles...". This opens the Iliad, one of
the greatest poems of humanity, written by Homer. This is the traditional
invocation to the Muse Calliope, who presided over the heroic poetry and is
considered a source of inspiration. I made a change, "Sing me, o Goddess,
the wrath of inaupicious student", to tell you the story of a shipwreck
that can’t happens. But if we transposed the whole story in an imaginary world,
it could take the tone of a joke. Once upon a time there were three teaching
islands at the University of Bari, probably the largest of the academic
archipelago. With the multimedia stations, each equipped with PC, they
represented a safe haven for the "wolves of the Web", aims to
research, write term papers or theses, write the Almalaurea form or fill out
the applications for registration and enrollment. Students felt calm, they
observed the rules, and in case of problems were assisted by a coach or a
mentor. Then something changed, possibly due to a telluric disruption (forgive
the irony, my faithful companion) and the islands have disappeared, or rather,
one has been terminated (plexus of Beata Elia Street), another has no Internet
connection and has been even lacking the printer (plexus of Q. Sella Road), the
last one appears and disappears, a bit like the volcanic origin islands that
are submerged and then re-emerge from the waters (Ateneo Palace, third floor,
side Crisanzio Street).
I’ve always been
of the opinion that the student body represents the bottom of the food chain,
but the status quo isn’t the best. In the moment you could glimpse the silhouette
of the last island, the last possible landing, there was found only at the
mercy of the current, time dragged by it, now rejected by the undertow, but
always surrounded by many acres of opened ocean.
To make shipwreck
would at least an island, even the most deserted or infested with giant
lizards, for not being pretentious, just a rock in the middle of the sea.
As you can see,
we have the resources at homeland, but we leave them in a state of neglect, in
fact now the didactic islands are very similar to the sequestration locals. And
the thing has been running for already two years.
The undersigned,
in full possession of her mental faculties as well as sarcastic, has granted
the desire of those who wanted that I extract the pen from its sheath to know
the sad reality of the students. Appertain to me a desire too: I don’t want
that this become a poem to be handed down through the centuries, I prefer
solutions rather than a diachronic fame.
It spent time,
but today goes missing only the island of Beata Elia Street.
Source: "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno", an italian
newspaper, August 3, 2010, p. 20.
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