Old or ancient = useless or outdated? - my experience at High School

Today I want to write a different post, because I got to know something which made me sad. The High School where I studied probably won't have a first class on the next year, because there isn't the minimum number of students necessary to create a class.

In Italy we went to school from the age of six to 19: we have elementary school (6-11), middle school (12-14), high school (15-19) and then university. While the first two are similar in matter of subjects, you can decide the type of high school you prefer according to your interests.

We have schools where you have to study Latin and these are called Licei, then others with laboratories (Istituti tecnici) and then professional schools. We can also distinguish different types of Licei: Scientific, Linguistic, Human Science and the one in which I studied, the Classic one (apart from Latin, I had also Ancient Greek as a subject).

You must be sure about your choice, because Liceo Classico can be very hard. It’s a matter of method, discipline and also passion. It can give you so much, but it can also make you mad: you can live moments of desperation and resignation because you feel like you can't do your best and you start to think you have made a mistake in choosing to study there. But you can survive, believe me, your efforts will be paid off.

A lot of people think studying such “dead” languages is a waste of time, especially considering the fact that our reality is surrounded by technology and that we look at the future rather than our origins. Subjects like IT, maths, Science in general seem more useful but I think that it's not fair to create a classification, because everything is important, even if we can't turn theories into practice immediately.

When I got to know that my old Liceo was in troubles, I was disappointed, because I learnt a lot of things which help me almost every day studying myths and also reading the poems in the native language.

These subjects which seem useless teach you how to interpret situations, how to see problems from different points of view, they give you values and ideals, examples of greatness and beauty, they shape your way of thinking and help you to have an open mind.

 

Nowadays, we have lost the contact with nature, we are more cynic and blind when it comes to emotions, because we often are in front of a cold screen, and even the power of imagination is fading away. What is missing is the sense of wonder, the search of the unknown, because technology seems to have all the answers to our questions: it gives us security and strength, but I think we don't have to forget the path which leads us to what we are today.

 

In fact it's important to know subjects like Latin and Greek because we can discover our origins, the changing in the way of thinking reality through the decades, the relationship between men and the world.

If I could go back, I would choose again this type of High School, to have the opportunity to reach new horizons of knowledge.


Bye for now


Yours, Silvia