Also in Coronavirus Times, Let's Keep Dreaming

Daily pills to help students (and families) organize their study in Covid-19 times, when almost one billion children have seen their schools close. Signed by Marcello Bramati and Lorenzo Sanna, deans and teachers at Faes High schools in Milan. As reported by Time magazine, they are teaching online during the lockdown, in an ongoing experiment in remote learning. Every morning at 8.30 a.m., their advice, tips and good practices for students of all ages.

Today we go back to the concept of time, between expectation, hope and realism. But always with the aim of building together, with the school and with the families, a facility that can stand solid, despite the fragility of the foundations upon which it now rests.

During these long days, the emotions and feelings that surround our young students come from social networks, chats and in some cases from news: fear, anxiety, and in some cases resignation, rage. «It will always be like that, we won't get out of it!»

There don't seem to be any different perspectives, in most cases. The present, often a unique dimension of our adolescents' lives, continues to remain an eternal condition, a little darker and eternally suspended. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to make sense to think now about a new day when we'll be able to go out, to walk in the park together, to resume kissing and hugging.

So it's up to the adults to give a meaning to the horizon of the future. Our daily battle to teach planning our young teenager has now become an urgent battle of meaning and hope. We are the ones who must reactivate the dimension of future, helping them to build new projects.

By necessity, we now have to abandon haste and simultaneousness, the «everything and now» philosophy of relationships. We have fertile ground, therefore, for cultivating the virtues of patience and planning.

Are we talking about hope and indeterminate time? Perhaps. However, in this indefinite time we can start planning projects, go back drawing, writing, training, organizing next trip, arrange the journey of our dreams. So, let's not stop dreaming and let's start planning.