What is culture? 
Last week, my son twelve years old asked me: "Dad, but you need to study history?"
confess that at first I had to think a lot 'to give a convincing answer, and even after, in retrospect, I do not know if I could lend credibility to my thought that no one can divide the life (and thus its culture) in compartmentalized and therefore each piece is important to build their thinking, but also know that Cardinal Mazarin, Richelieu's successor as Prime Minister of France, was actually Italian, not French as many people think that believing in the history books is the French name Italianate Mazarine when it is done exactly the opposite, or rather than the word "salary" derives from the fact that ancient Roman soldiers were paid in kind, and very often with salt (hence "Salarium" indeed), who was among the basic necessities most appreciated.
What is certain is that today's schools does nothing to help the kids understand why it is important to increase their culture by linking the various pieces and especially encourages them to establish concrete links between what they study and their everyday life, much less this task is fulfilled by the mass media, which in fact create continuous dystonia in the younger generations by proposing models based solely on the concept of use and consumption, possibly rapid, instilling in them the concept that everything has more than 10 years is outdated and therefore useless. Not that everything in the recent past was different, mind you, but it is certain that more progress the world (now we can not even say "the West", since our models so-called "advanced" we have exported anywhere in China have their work cut McDonald's on the corner and the Wii in the living room home instead of books) and, paradoxically, less importance is given to knowledge and cultural diversity at least in the eyes of those who govern us, given the importance that is given to their protection. E 'of the news last week that Italy is last among the EU countries in the percentage of public expenditure devoted to the culture (0.2% of total), but that others are more virtuous of us, do not think .
To close, because I'm lucky to have young readers on my blog, I'd like to ask a question of who from the school (primary and secondary objectives but also thinking about the university's speech might not be too different) is released recently, or still hangs in there. Have you ever had a teacher in your classroom in the middle of his lecture will ask, "and what do you think?". Well, I asked my son and the answer was no.
desolate, no.
I think this "no" says it all alone, without the need to consider what I wrote earlier.
no, not true ... 
