EDOARDO DE CARLI: THE PERMANENCE OF KNOWLEDGE Txt: Eleonora Oreggia / Original title: La permanenza del sapere In recent years, in Italy and elsewhere, many things have changed in the field of knowledge, the propagation of culture and the education system. For a long time, people have spoken about school reform, one of the many cases in which Italian bureaucracy has shown its slow and backward mechanisms. If on the one hand Italian students were at a disadvantage in comparison with their 'foreign' fellows, because the system was far away from practice and reality, on the other hand Italian school, which has always been public and non-meritocratic, had the rare quality to teach how to think. Instead of creating office-workers and rampant careerists to be employed in the industrial sector, Italian schools churned out thinkers, philosophers, cultured people accustomed to rely on the effort and the exercise of their minds. Some used to say that students from Europe and USA, coming from shorter and easier classes, had more practical experience thanks to internships in companies and industries, and were more prepared to orient themselves in the industry of business. They were in fact more familiar to the world of work and production, especially when compared to the desperate philosophers 'in search of identity' lost in the corridors of Italian universities for years and years. Shortly before the start of the reforms, a subtle form of ostracism, a hidden opposition to philosophical and literal studies that was disguised as technicality, crept into school classrooms; some stated: on the one hand unemployment, on the other hyperspecialization. Were these words wise? When a man, becoming fragment, cannot see any longer the system he is part of, ignoring the process he is contributing to spark off, why should he wonder when he realises the manufacturer of the chain clenching his neck is no one but himself? It is easier to accept being manipulated, asking no questions. Nowadays, over the streets of the planet, it is still possible to come across the survivors of that class of 'extinguishing poets' who are the last depositories of a tradition belonging to a past by now probably lost. These hybrid individuals are witnesses of the change. In fact, while their studies followed scholastic programs based on the 19 th century's model, at the same time they spectated the digital revolution, which implies the widespread diffusion of computers, the massive use of the Internet and the proliferation of electronic accessories and tools. Just like these Demons who, born from Humans and Gods, have features and qualities of both, the Centaurs of culture, monstrous and limping beings, understand Prolog and Pascal, Homer, Python, Basic and Dante. Contaminated by present, future and past, they read languages which do no longer exist, and their minds are crossed by sentences, sounds and words belonging to history. Executing their thought as code, they can process lines of Latin and Greek, researching the root of numbers and words, as if time still had a value, and words any meaning. Attempting to open a reflection on thematic non trendy, such as education in schools, the search for a solid know-how, the propagation and the loss of culture and the manipulation of knowledge, I decided to interview Mr. Edoardo De Carli, the founder of 'Gilda degli insegnanti' (Italian union of teachers) and, for many years, Italian and Latin teacher in the great H course of Liceo Classico Beccaria, the most ancient classical lyceum (arts high school) in Milan. Eleonora Oreggia: How did school changed over the last 30 years? And the education system? Edoardo De Carli: Market rules have changed it: students are clients and for this reason it is necessary to satisfy them; but knowledge (or the diploma, also without knowledge) is not only a product for students, but for the whole community, present and future; also people without children pay taxes for a school system which should guarantee good plumbers, good accountants and good geriatricians for everybody. And today, the market forces the industrial sector into short production plans (two to five years), whereas the investment in school has to take into account long-term plans: it takes from 12 to 18 years to educate a good plumber, an accountant, or a geriatrician. Eleonora Oreggia: Over the last years there have been two extremely innovative elements: on the one hand the school reform and on the other hand the digital revolutionÉ Could you comment, according to your experience, on these two historical events? Edoardo De Carli: Reform or reforms? Apparently, each new government brings in reforms with the result that the long-term investment becomes more uncertain, fragmentary, precarious. Moreover, school's adaptation to the situation became a coward attempt to survive, a 'do it yourself' management disguised as school autonomy. The aspects of the reform that have caused more disorder have been precisely school autonomy (at the end the different cycles give results that diverse you cannot guarantee any cohering quality level), and the abolition of 'September exams' (students not proficient in maximum three subjects could be re-examined on September and either pass or repeat the year). That was the cherry on the cake: students definitely turned into customers, and the idea that it is the shop that should provide the product one is looking for was confirmed. The sense of responsibility of the human being forging his destiny with his own hands was lost. Information Technology has become, in most cases, a facilitating tool: if you surf the Internet, there are many websites providing you summaries of books, paraphrases of poems, translations of Latin, Greek, and English, ready-made papers. In short, the most used options are 'cut and paste'. Eleonora Oreggia: From what cultural model does school reform draw inspiration? What do students say? And teachers? Edoardo De Carli: Cultural models? Since the first reform of the final examinations the 'cultural model' has been saving money on the budget of the Ministry of Education, although there are some people who keep believing this was a consequence of the 1968th protest movements! Moreover, the other 'cultural model' was supporting potential associations of trade unions and probable voters: it is enough to see for example the recent progress of Religion teachers; or, shortly before, primary school with the 2/3 or more teachers: the CISL (the Italian confederation of trade union workers), which was lobbying and pushed this reform for its own interests, saw the number of its members increasing among teachers from primary school; then others hurried to do the same. Those teachers who have known the school as it was are now resigned, accomplishing the fact they cannot oppose themselves to the strong power of politics and economy; the association of which I am one of the founders, the 'Gilda degli insegnanti', tried in any way to stop this inexorable trend, but it was all useless. Young teachers are bewildered by this perverse system that forces them into biannual corvee (read schools of specialisation). These, afterwards, leave them in a status of long term precarity. When they succeed in solving the problem of having a stable job, therefore starting to get interested in the school system, they are already a little bit aged. About the students: since they are young, they adapt quickly and readily. If they are allowed to enjoy themselves for 13 years, without working too hard and behaving like real consumers, why should they worry about the fact they will be, in the future, miserable people? These individuals with no culture and obese in their spirit will be surpassed, in their careers, by the immigrants' children, who are still deeply convinced that the harder you work, the more you get. Eleonora Oreggia: To what extent do computers influence people's learning ability and concentration? What are the pros and cons? Edoardo De Carli: About 10 years ago, at Liceo Beccaria, I organised a computer working group of students; voluntarily sharing the skills everyone had individually acquired as autodidact, we wanted to create the school website and see what else we could do (in terms of organisation, knowledge and didactics) with the computers we had at our disposal. In short, it was a real workshop, we had plenty of ideas and we struggled with the possibilities we had (hardware, software, competences, time and funds). I think that that experience which I liked very much was useful for many of those students, too. Afterwards, my colleagues started to teach regular courses, to give ECDL qualifications, computer patents and so on. I don't know what are their effects: two years ago I left the school. However, when I look at the University students to whom I still teach Latin, I don't notice any general improvement on their concentration and learning ability, quite the contrary! Eleonora Oreggia: How is classical culture transferred through the Internet? Edoardo De Carli: Well, there are many classicist websites; I use them mostly to search for texts and other similar material and for this reason I give university students lists of selected URLs (I don't recommend Splash-Latino, the website full of ready translations, which an inexperienced gymnasium student immediately knows). Moreover, when I wrote a Livio anthology for the Lyceum, I realised the incredible use of the internet Thesauri: these enormous databases allow you to quickly verify the percentuage of occurrence of names, constructions, and so on. The former compiler of a grammar book or a dictionary, was influenced by human memory which focused on curious and interesting things that were, possibly, not so frequent (therefore such exceptions shouldn't be explained in an anthology because of the low probability you have to meet them in a text). On the contrary, the extremely exact digital memory suggests what students are more likely to find in the pages they will have to translate. Eleonora Oreggia: What do you think about Wikipedia? And about the translation of culture from one medium to another? Edoardo De Carli: Wikipedia is a good thing, but also dangerous: after reading few well-explained entries, you tend to trust it almost blindly. But then you find an explanation full of stupidity; you report it, but then you think: why should they trust me correcting? They also trusted the other one, who wrote the wrong entry... The translation of culture from one medium to another makes things much easier: an online book can save you hours waiting at the library desk. The 'find' option prevents you from getting lost in a book without index. Personally, since I tend to consult many different books at a time, I can do it much better on a computer screen than on my writing-desk, where the volumes can fall off. Eleonora Oreggia: What should be saved of antiquity? And how? Edoardo De Carli: Everything that can be saved. How? Like English people do: in a divulgative but rigorous and correct way. There, university professors write books for children: if they write rubbish, their colleagues will shoot them. Here in Italy, university professors don't soil their hands with popular books. Those who do are showmen (see for example all those TV programmes that, to reduce audience to the still serious Piero Angela, are starring these new really ignorant and wretched strolling players). Eleonora Oreggia: The veracity of the Internet is questioned by the Official Academy and erudite people don't always facilitate its verification and the passage (from papery to digital). Is Italian academic world ready for knowledge sharing and free circulation of information? Why? Edoardo De Carli: No, it isn't, for the reasons I've just said: we still behave like Don Abbondio, who used the 'latinorum' to confuse poor Renzo. So mere mortals don't understand the juridical language because it's incomprehensible for them, and the same happens with the bureaucratic and the medical language (aren't lawyers and accountants earning so much money just because they speak these 'foreign languages'?). All serious culture must be incomprehensible: otherwise, how could we distinguish erudites from louts? Eleonora Oreggia: Could you comment on the following issues, taking into account the transformations between past, present and future, digital world and traditional culture? - internet learning Edoardo De Carli: I can see practical aspects, not the birth of a new 'forma mentis'; moreover, the risk to find rubbish blending to pearls is always there, also in papery culture. - the deletion of cultures Edoardo De Carli: Impossible! Despite globalisation, in Italy wizards, cheap saints and various Padre Pio are proliferating, whereas in Sweden they don't exist. - unreliability of Google Edoardo De Carli: No way! When you digit name and surname in inverted commas of some not very famous personality you get in the first page a link to my website of monuments and gravestones! It means that that search engine has a well done brain. - free circulation of knowledge Edoardo De Carli: Until a certain extent (and I'm not talking about censorship in China or in Muslim countries). Without a human transfert (mather and father, friends, teacher) that teaches you to appreciate knowledge, you may not be searching for it: you think it's boring! Much better allucinating on some loopy and trippy game. - data searching and archiving Edoardo De Carli: The investment on accumulation of data in digital format should be multiplied. - the manipulation of knowledge Edoardo de Carli: This is normally part of any process of transmission from one generation to the other, be this cultur oral, written or computed. - accessibility Edoardo De Carli: That's there. It's expensive, but you save time. Still it's true you get fat sitting all day. Eleonora Oreggia: What's your vision on technology, taking into account perspectives, possibilities, risks, advantages? Edoardo De Carli: Technology will go on independently, no matter what our ethic is. Economy can affect it, stop it, erase it, or impressing on it a more rapid impulse. Risks? Those are always there (even when Cain used a donkey's mandible to kill Abel). Now, what risks are one way only, this should be evalueted. Still, it is again technology which allows us to find and measure them!! Eleonora Oreggia: Could you add a personal reflection on the topic? Edoardo De Carli: We have to calm down. Eleonora Oreggia: Since you have spent most of your life with young people, could you donate us a sentence or an advice, the verse of a poem or an image, for those who, coming after us, won't have the priviledge we had to witness the change from classical to digital culture? Edoardo De Carli: I would only remind them that at the time of Plato culture was still oral: he recited Homer by heart (and that's why, sometimes, he mistook); however, after Plato, there wasn't any deluge; and Kant wasn't stupid; I would tell them that the monks on Mount Athos continued to copy books by hand even after Gutenberg's invention (until the 18th century!!). And yet, it wasn't the end of the world!! What can a computer be to change so much our way of learning, living? www.chieracostui.com/ www.liceobeccaria.it/ www.chieracostui.com/costui/docs/info/informazioni.asp?page=credits www.beccaria-asbec.it/asbec/index.asp -- Eleonora Maria Irene Oreggia (c) April 2008