Covid-19: let's not forget to exercise

Daily pills to help students (and families) organize their study in Covid-19 times 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 Covid-19 lockdown, in an ongoing experiment in remote learning. Every morning at 8.30 a.m. on panorama.it, starting from March 14, 2020, their advice, tips and good practices for students of all ages.

In these days of reading, solitary study or live video lessons, surely many will scroll through the pages of the great epic poems of antiquity: Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid. In an anthology or in the original language, for middle school or high school. There are also reduced versions for elementary school, but today our main target is the adolescent student.

Let's take cue from the main characters of the classic epic and then turn our days into testing grounds and battlefields for our daily heroism, challenged by the coronavirus. We can also become the main characters of our daily epic, personal and familiar, between the distant glances of those who open the door of the room or peek in the social.

Inspired by the heroes of ancient Troy, by Aeneas or Hector, we become heroes in the priority meaning of the ability and desire to be examples: for the others, for our companions, for ourselves. The pietas of the young students, confined at home, has to become the scrupulous respect for the guidelines of our country in trouble, for the common good. Just for the good of all, we can serenely accept to sacrifice part of our personal desires and projects for these long days.

Heroism and renunciation emerge from the classical texts and adjust to our lives. So here comes the renunciation to go out, to see mates and friends, to hurry, to enjoy the sun, to develop many plans. Projects that now are secondary and suspended.

But heroism also means looking for a project about ourselves to carry on because heroes are also noble, good, honest and beautiful characters, healthy in soul and body. The young heroic student, therefore, takes control of his time, acts from the common good perspective, studies and takes care of his spirit.

But he also takes care of his body and organizes physical training, in his room or in the corridor, with the help of technology and his physical education teacher. Remotely, of course. Because, as it is known since the time of the Tenth Junius Juvenal, a «mens sana in corpore sano» is fundamental. Such a sententia has never been so pertinent.