To my teacher Maria: thank you for the huge impact you had in my life.

I was 6 years old when I joined in September 1977 this class of “Seconda Elementare” at the School Livio Tempesta in Rome. It was the beginning of a new journey and I can still remember the curiosity and the anxiety of joining this class, the rest of the kids having spent one year together, and I was the new one arriving : I didn’t know, at the time, that this would have been the story of my life ever after, in so many occasions. Today I can say that “adaptability” is still today one of my resilience recipes, and it all started that day.

The big surprise I had was meeting with our teacher: Maria Marranghello. I had already met her during the “admission exam”, as she was one of the organizer of that session in June of the same year, and only 2 years later I knew she actually saw me during that exam and decided she wanted me to be in her class. She was a very experienced educator, quite famous in the school for her strong political views, and also for her “anti-conformist” approach to pedagogy: while she was very knowledgeable about the standard program for her classes, she was deeply interested in all alternative methods and she would constantly blend tradition and new systems in the way she approached every day's activities.

This was a huge epiphany in my life. My education at home had been very strict: a lot of rules, a lot of values, a lot of principles, and a mental framework on quality and respect that would “keep me” from doing “wrong” things. I am still very thankful to my parents for that framework of course, which is still what shapes me as a person today. But I also have to say that I wouldn’t be “me” without what Maria Marranghello brought into my life at 6: the capability of questioning the status quo of the system you are immerged in, to make sure you have a critical view of the context and in the end build up your own point of view. That was at the same time extraordinary and revolutionary for 6/7 years old kids.

We would go to supermarkets in a class visit and would be allowed to “touch everything”, and later report back our impressions and our view of what a supermarket is and how it works. We would read articles of a newspaper and organize a formal debate. We would read books that were “out of the official program”. We built our own newspaper with articles we were writing ourselves, not only about School activities, but a proper journalism exercise, “Il Ficcanaso” (“The Nosey Parker”). We also were an “experimental class” as we hosted a girl, Giulietta, that had severe cognitive difficulties, and that was also a marvelous experience of acceptance, inclusion, patience and maturity for me and us all.

I owe Maria Marranghello so much. Her vision inspired me; her style intrigued me; her portentous energy is still an unmatched example; her capability to help us building new skills enabled in me a life-long learning appetite; her push for us to question the top-down systems helped me focus on building all my analytical and critical thinking skills. Her courage to hold herself accountable to bring more value to the table for her class by reinventing the usage of pedagogic tools has been setting for me the bar of expectations on courage around continuous transformation of the models we are giving to operate. Finally, her passion for her pupils has been contagious ad a great lesson for me about what it means to be engaged in a real development plan with the persons I work with, the value I can bring, the impact I can have.

This is how powerful a teacher can be in shaping the personality and the culture of youth.

This week in France we are mourning the loss of a teacher because of a terrorist mortal attack. Samuel Paty has been “punished” for bringing to his class elements of critical thinking about societal debates, and this is terrible, for the human loss, obviously, but also, in a wider sense, for freedom, for democracy and for the respect of a societal construct at national level. I feel the duty to stand up and thank, through Maria Marranghello, all the teachers and educators that chose such a meaningful, engaging, rewarding but also difficult role. While thanking you for your engagement I want to underline the importance of what you do, recognize the challenges you encounter everyday when trying to be impactful with every student, and tell you how relevant what you do is for us all, individually and collectively. Thank you.

When in the Summer of 1979 I moved to Paris with my family, I still remember vividly the day I went to school with my father to manage some bureaucracy and get documents I needed for my new school in France. Maria was there, she was so emotional about me leaving the class, she wanted to be there that last day. That same week she came in the center of Rome with her FIAT500 to the hotel where we were staying before flying to Paris and she gave me a book as a gift, that I still have and cherish. Yes, I owe her my passion for literature as well! Thank you, Maria, for being such an important figure in my life, thank you for what you chose to do with me. Thank you for holding me in your arms 6 years ago when we met last time in Rome, so happy for seeing me after 35 years. Thank you for being such a wonderful person, with such an outstanding impact on who I am today. I will never forget.