The Piccinnini school seemed far, far away, beyond every periphery. Only via Tiburtina managed to get there. Otherwise it was surrounded by uncultivated meadows - arid in summer, muddy in winter. Going through them every morning seemed like a further punishment; it was added to the misfortunes and meltdowns that in that period were chasing my family, who had recently returned to Rome. The intolerance was not diluted in class, a fifth grade attended by workers' and unemployed daughters who in their faces, in their gestures, in their words carried the difficulties, the hardships, the abuses that lived outside daily. 

 

The teacher was busy. But his efforts didn't pay off. Every now and then he lost his patience - he flew a few slaps. It was still only October and the situation seemed stagnant. One day a new teacher arrived, or rather, an auxiliary teacher, who was supposed to help. He was a small, somewhat shy man. He did not raise his voice and often smiled. Yet he was inflexible. 

 

In a short time everything was revolutionized. The classroom changed, the atmosphere changed and we changed. The hours passed quickly one after the other. In fact, we stayed at school even in the afternoon. Our commitments had multiplied and we, previously so riotous and awkward, had ended up being even enthusiastic. Suddenly school had become an enchanted world.

 

But it wasn't a fairy tale - it was a utopia. And we had discovered that we were the protagonists. It was up to us to prepare and anticipate with zeal and imagination. This made us understand in a few days our new master Gianni Rodari. So we soon got out of the sad and passive role of schoolgirls forgetting an oppressive Roman suburbs.

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Each had a task in that small, big transformation. Not that we had stopped studying history, geography, arithmetic. Rather! We did it with a new passion and exploratory fervor.

 

What part could I have played that, besides being the youngest, felt so alien and rejected? Rodari assigned me two. I was the postman of the class. I sorted the letters that each addressed to the master, but also to a companion, to talk about himself, to let off steam, complain, confide. Thus small frictions and futile misunderstandings could have been overcome. There was nothing to prevent letters from being written to real or fictitious, existing or imaginary characters.

 

In addition to playing this role, almost interpretative and psychoanalytic (many letters were read together and commented on), I was an "eye on the world". So the master Rodari called me. Not all of my companions had access to newspapers. I could instead get them at home or among relatives who did not live far away. "L'Unità", "Paese sera", sometimes "Il Messaggero". In short, what I could find. I was in charge of news coming from abroad. Every morning I brought newspaper clippings and pasted them on large cartons. They were our tazebao. I realized that hierarchy was important. So I put up everything related to the war in Vietnam that I found deeply unfair. At least half an hour in class was devoted to discussing the news.