Facing the high school finals at the time of the coronavirus The thoughts of a high school student on a moment of his youth that will never return

It's 8:00 on Thursday 7 May and I'm writing this article pretending it to be the first test of Italian of the maturity exam for the 2019/2020 school year. I do it because this year there will be no first test. This year, in fact, for us in the class of 2001 will be all different: no first test, no second test. There will be only the third, the oral one, that will unfold in ways that are still unknown to us. 

The thought then skips a generation, it goes to the class of 2002, to them and to those who after them I can face a serene maturity. I hope they can live it to the full, with its joys and fears, even for us unfortunate, which is the only adjective with which I can describe ourselves. I also think of the professors, who for five years held hands on a journey with a bitter ending, lost a few kilometers before the finish line. I think of the parents of all my peers, rightly concerned about the fate of their children.

In particular, however, I think of us youths, that this finals we have waited for, sighed and dreamed about, feared, and now we see it get out of hand. We did not deserve it to end like this - but we will be able to learn from a different lesson, a type of teaching that cannot be imparted at a distance and which will serve all our lives: not everything is given or predictable but difficulties strengthen the mind, as fatigue strengthens the body.