Divergent Pupils Are Growing Somewhere

This video clip documents a pedagogical approach revealed through the sheer enthusiasm, the gazes, and the active participation of these third-grade students.

The narrative follows a young girl drawn to a series of signs as she wanders the school hallways. She approaches and peeks through the doorway of a mysterious classroom: her expression is one of pure wonder. The scene opens on this special room where the first thing that catches the eye is a title looming over a wall plastered with paintings: "Anticurricula Lab." This is the document’s first explosion—one that will surely trigger "convulsions" in those who spend their daily lives making education dramatically boring and tasteless, adhering to obsolete, ancient, and utterly inadequate practices. The educational system is gravely ill with "curricular-centrism," bureaucracy, and training paths sterilized by "fossilized" resistance. For at least 30 years, these forces have obstructed any concrete evolution capable of keeping pace with the times, starting with proper education on mastering and correctly using technologies that are in constant evolution.

Through spectacular transitions, the video showcases these young pupils—all masked for privacy reasons—proud and eager to display their artistic productions, which rival those of any adult.

The musical rhythm, marked as "original" by social media, accompanies a succession of protagonists leading to the stunning finale:

A young girl opens a notebook instantly recognizable as the iconic "Primary Composition Notebook" widely used in the U.S. But we aren't in America… we are in Italy. So, what are Italian children doing with notebooks completely outside their traditional curricular standards?

It doesn’t end there. The girl grabs a marker and, as if starting this special notebook with a traditional subject-header, she writes diagonally in a graphically striking hand: "Proud to be Divergent!".

A total sacrilege for the established tradition that bans markers and vivid colors on notebooks, preferring a limited, traditional expressiveness with faded hues.

The scene ends with a smile. But there’s more. We move to the interactive whiteboard—which in many schools was designed merely to mimic traditional teaching. Here, another boy writes with a masterful stroke: "Proud to grow Divergent.".

This is an educational process aimed at creativity and originality, implying a path of continuous experimentation and cutting-edge learning that refuses to remain a hollow slogan.

These young Divergents will grow up with their creative wealth, strengthened by "different" and "divergent" learning. They will likely be "undomesticated," ready to face a world that is increasingly difficult and light-years away from the one imagined by the generations that failed. They will be the light of the future, surely joining others scattered across the globe who are waiting for nothing more than to unite their brilliance.

One wonders what Marshall McLuhan—author of "City as Classroom: Understanding Language and Media"—would think today. His pedagogical direction, clearly mapped out half a century ago, has long been ignored, if not opposed, by the cultural "dead weight" of an ideological tradition that has turned into nothing more than stagnant "curricular-centrism."

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