Years ago I metLove without liesin a wonderful Roman bookstore. Those were intense years of research, during which my heart sought new avenues to nourish itself. The book captivated me at first sight, perhaps because of the unique cover, perhaps because of the title… Is there love without lies? And what is it like? Where can I find it? The authors were two teachers like me… an irresistible draw. I bought it immediately.
Since that dayLove without liesIt became a precious companion in my life and in my work as a teacher. I shared it with children, boyfriends, students… because the narration of the text is a journey with a thousand paths that everyone can take, where everyone can find a piece of themselves. You can immerse yourself in history, science, myths, the Theory of Birth… and so, little by little, from that text a project on sexuality as an affective dimension was born, every page became a “lesson” built with the students… Dido and Aeneas, Orpheus and Eurydice, Italian Romanticism became our stories… my boyfriend… my parents… my friend. “Guys, a whole new world opens up here!”, I would say amusedly to the students every time we tackled a new topic and they would slyly tease me, “Teacher, but how many worlds are there!”
Did we talk about sexuality? Yes. Did we talk about relationships, gender differences, love, and what isn’t love? Of course. Were we able to overcome prejudices or bridge certain cognitive gaps? Sometimes. But never like in those moments did I truly get to know my students, and they got to know me. The discussion, the dialogue, the freedom to address non-“traditional” topics transported us into a collective dance that was passion, education, shared growth. In those years, no one censored me, not even the families (who often read the text together with their children, perhaps even to “check” what the teacher was up to!). Luck? I don’t think so. In reality, everyone perceived that there was no attempt to convey a doctrine, but only to jointly address the complexity of human reality… because sexuality is a human reality.
As I write, however, I know that all of this would no longer be possible today. Discussing sexuality in schools will require informed consent from families (in middle and high schools). In elementary schools, it will be completely forbidden. The verb “forbid” has always given me hives, especially when applied to sexuality, and I wonder what the thinking is behind all this. Why is sexuality so scary? Why must it become a battleground for ideological conflict? What is it that they want to control?
How shortsighted all this is! So, are there topics that can only be addressed with the consent of families or in compliance with government “prohibitions”? Today it’s sexuality, tomorrow it’s sexuality? Can we really allow families, while respecting their educational responsibilities, to forcefully intervene in school curriculums like this?
Anyone like me who experiences school every day knows how crazy all this is because students, even the youngest, find everything on the web, in the media, or in a certain old-fashioned patriarchal culture and often “swallow” terrifying content without having the tools to understand and criticize it. With “bans,” we don’t protect them… we leave them alone.
Sara Lazzaro
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