In the Senate, a bill to introduce subjects related to cultural heritage to the classical high school

A bill to enhance the study of art history at the classical high school and to introduce subjects such as cultural heritage legislation, museum law, publishing and writing, sociology of cultural processes and several others. This is what reached the Senate Culture Committee last June 19, which is considering it. The bill (“Provisions for the Enhancement of the Classical High School”) aims to enrich the offerings of the classical high school from the 2024-2025 school year and was submitted to the Senate by the Civics of Italy and Fratelli d’Italia groups: first signatory is Senator Giovanna Petrenga of Fratelli d’Italia, an art historian functionary at the Ministry of Culture who was also previously director of the Royal Palace of Caserta and superintendent of Caserta and Benevento.

“In order to enhance and promote the cultural and educational heritage of high schools,” reads the text of the bill, “starting from the school year 2024/2025, in secondary schools of the second grade, public and equal, such as the classical high school, the course of study is implemented with the teaching of the following subjects: art history and archaeology; legislation of cultural heritage, museum law and archives; publishing and writing; computer science; a second foreign language; sociology of cultural processes, cultural anthropology and theory and techniques of multicultural communication; political economy; elements of constitutional law; elements of international law and European Union law; and elements of administrative law.” The choices of curricula will be the responsibility of the school leader, and as for the related charges, schools will provide them with human, instrumental and financial resources available under current legislation. Learning objectives, curricula and lesson plans, on the other hand, should be established, the bill provides, by decree of the Ministry of Education. The subjects chosen by principals will have to be forwarded at least one hundred and twenty days before the start of the school year to the Ministry of Education, accompanied by expenditure charges to be incurred and any critical issues encountered in finding resources.

Of course, for now this is little more than an idea: the Petrenga ddl is just at the beginning of its process, and its legislative path may not come to a conclusion, or simply the ddl may be modified during the various steps it will have to undergo. Interestingly, however, there is a return to the discussion of art history in schools.

The proposal, reads the report accompanying the ddl, is aimed at strengthening the institution of the classical high school. “If at the international level, as a forma mentis, the classical world is an asset not to be set aside,” the senators write in the report, “in Italy, the center of Latinity, the opposite trend is operating: Latin and Greek are considered languages no longer spoken, with no practical and immediate use, dead, and as such useless, even though our country has monuments and works everywhere bearing Latin phrases and important degree courses where knowledge of words in the Latin and Greek languages is by no means negligible. New generations of Italian graduates who are unable to read the meaning of a Latin inscription on a monument as opposed to many of their foreign peers. It is necessary to question the reason for the lack of interest in these languages that nevertheless demonstrate their practical usefulness and also the diminished interest in the place of higher education most conducive to the study of the cultural heritage of the West: the classical high school.”

“The non-high numbers of student enrollments in the classical high school, a course of study that more than others represents a bulwark for the defense of Western identity and values,” they continue, “conceal an issue of great importance, an enormous criticality: a decrease in the general cultural preparation of the new generations and, consequently, their diminished ability to analyze and understand the reality that surrounds them. We question the usefulness of Latin, philosophy, history and geography, but not why new generations of Italians do not know in which region of Italy there is this or that city or on which continent a particular state. The macro problem is the cultural impoverishment of our country. It would seem that the educational growth of the person should be based on the subjects and professional skills that interest companies and their job offers, and that the subjects that do not have a clear practical purpose, but that teach reasoning and tell about us, about our civilization, Latin and Greek precisely, is better to replace them with other subjects that are more useful for finding work. But less interest in the past and what represents it also has another fallout: disinterest benefits the establishment of a society without a solid identity or with a shifting identity. In this sense, the Latin and Greek languages can be perceived as elements that characterize the history of European culture, to be eliminated because they are considered dissonant, extraneous or non-functional for achieving a different and new ’identity’ for Europe.”

Hence, also, the conviction that in order to make people understand the educational importance of the classical high school, it is not enough just to intervene legislatively: “it is important to have UNESCO’s involvement in order to enhance the value of classical studies and the Latin and Greek languages by having them included in the list of intangible cultural heritage; it is appropriate to act on supply and demand, letting eighth graders and their parents know that it is worth enrolling in the classical high school, a choice that requires a lot of commitment but returns it in the form of personal success; it is appropriate not to simplify and replace the classical high school curriculum, but to enhance it by offering new subjects.”

And so here is the introduction of the new subjects, led by those related to cultural heritage and artistic heritage. “In recalling that Law Aug. 20, 2019, no. 92, introduced compulsory civic education in all school orders as of the 2020/2021 school year,” the report concludes, “we believe that the offer of the classical high school should maintain its traditional subjects to which additional subjects, useful to the student, should be added, in a balance of classical and scientific subjects that do not distort it but enrich it for its purposes: To train a person capable of choosing any university faculty and, in any case, even without a college degree, to have one’s ability to study, analyze and intuitively, systematize, organize and solve complex problems appreciated in work, any work. Which is the skill that knowledge of Greek and Latin languages helps the student develop and achieve.”

Photo: Luigi Catalani

In the Senate, a bill to introduce subjects related to cultural heritage to the classical high school

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