Letter from Teacher Elisabetta Dall’Oro

To Marco & Gloria who died on June 14, 2017, in the fire of the Grenfell Tower in London.
This year I served as a support teacher at the Comprehensive School “G. Toniolo” in San Stino di Livenza, in the province of Venice, and I met Marco’s mother by chance or perhaps by fate, since she works in the same school as a secretary. I had heard of her from my colleagues and after having associated the story of the fire with the Grenfell Tower in London to her, I felt a strong pain in my heart and an inexplicable desire to know her, to talk to her and to suffer together. Suddenly a reminiscence of Latin studies emerged from the depths: the verb “to pity” comes from the Latin “compăti” which means “to endure, to suffer together” … things that would never have occurred to me many years ago, while I was examined in Latin, among the school desks.
And so, while I was talking to Marco’s mother and I was experiencing her pain, the phrases of my professors kept ringing in my head, on the importance of culture: “culture, boys, it’s like a seed that blooms in its time, but you have to water it every day and then you have to clear the ground and take care of the plant, because only in this way will it become strong and in turn will make good fruits ”.
Here it is now my turn.
Now it is I who repeat these phrases endlessly to the boys and girls I find myself educating, along with my Latin, now a friend of mine, who suggests to me that “educating” comes from the Latin “educĕre”, which means “to draw out, to rear, lead »… how wonderful culture is!
And now it is I who suggest them: boys and girls learn and learn well and build well and with humility.
Destiny has brought me here, on vacation, in Your beautiful and much loved by me, London, a few days after the anniversary of the death of these two erudite and educated boys and here I leave some simple thoughts for You, that passes here , if you want to reflect on the importance of culture.
They are simple sentences written by the pupils of 1AS, the class in which I worked, a heterogeneous and wonderful class like the thousand faces of a brilliant.

with love,
Teacher Elisabetta D.