When the Secret Question Messes Up Plans

By Simone Riva — How a Teacher’s Reflection on Exams and Life Reveals the Importance of Being Seen and Valued

It's pouring outside. The city is becoming alarmed because it can no longer contain water.

Notices would arrive in the evening that roads, schools‌ and the market would be closed. I am in the classroom with the fifth graders, who have been doing, from the first hour, the simulation of the second test of the state exam.

I have to do the so-called surveillance. I walk between the desks, sit‌ and watch them. I can't help but think back to when I was in their place, with that anxiety you get from worrying about catching the correct answers and not ruining your grade-point average just a few weeks before the end of school. After a moment, though, I imagine them as they grow up, these boys and girls, taking off, some with difficulty and others almost naturally.

On this torrential rainy day when so many are on "watch" to defend roads, bridges‌ and tests, crossing the gazes of my pupils, with whom I've been together for four years, now takes me back to that day in my life when I took flight because someone stopped "watching" me.

It was an afternoon like many in winter, and two friends had proposed that I start studying with them.

In addition to studying books, we almost immediately found ourselves struggling with studying ourselves.

No precautions, protection‌ or distance. For the first time in my environment, I could be with people who didn't need an "other me." 

As I look at the boys, occasionally, someone raises his head. Our gazes cross, and a smile is spontaneously triggered. Then, they lower their heads again and continue writing. It's the gesture that holds up a life: the hope that someone is waiting for their face.

The smile says this: it's good that you are there. It's good that the other is there for ourselves and the world. It's good because someone thought of it and wanted it. 

What a difference it is from the usual way of seeing things.

 Sometimes, we allow ourselves to be put on glasses with artifactual lenses. We see out of reality only what is missing.
Unrevised translation by the author. Monza, 05.21.2024