My name is Ilaria Scaccabarozzi, and I am currently the mayor of the municipality of Gorgonzola, but previously I was a criminal lawyer, and before that I was an elementary school teacher who graduated from the Maria Immacolata Institute in Gorgonzola: because my history, not only in terms of my education but also in terms of my life, began with the Sisters—as we used to say—because I entered at the age of 3 and left at 18, so practically all my education took place at the Maria Immacolata Institute (IMI).
To tell the truth, I didn’t get to decide where to go to kindergarten and elementary school. In middle school, I specifically asked my parents to let me go to IMI. In high school, I wanted to do something else. In fact, I never really became a teacher because I wanted to do something completely different with my life. But in the end, my parents chose IMI, and IMI it was. So I would say that 15 years of my life there is a long time. What’s more, if you add to that the fact that the Maria Immacolata Institute was the headquarters of the girls’ oratory—at the time there was a girls’ oratory and a boys’ oratory—so after school I stayed there to be in the oratory, I spent more time there than I did at home.
I am asked what words I would use to describe my journey. One word that definitely comes to mind is home. Home because I was practically always there, but always there in a good way, because that is my home. It was my home, but I still consider it my home because it was an important place for me, even though my school life there was quite troubled. I started out at age 3 with a reputation for being a chatterbox, and I reached age 18, at the end of teacher training college, with a reputation for being a chatterbox. So much so that, as I always say, they took away one of my class assignments, saying that I was chatting, when in fact it wasn’t me that time, but the reputation was that I was the one who chatted: that’s how it was. So in kindergarten, Sister Renata, who was an exceptional nun, would put me in the trash can to keep me quiet. I was a little agitated, okay, but I don’t think I was the only one who was agitated in that school. Absolutely not.
So it really is an important part of my life that I can sum up in a few words: home, definitely, and I would add education, but education in the best sense of the word. The first sign that the education I was receiving was a high-quality one came when I started high school, because at that point girls were coming from all the surrounding towns, and therefore from different schools. And you could immediately see the difference in terms of preparation, in terms of how you had been educated, but also in terms of instruction: in short, in terms of knowledge and how well we were prepared in Italian and mathematics, you could immediately see the difference. But the great thing was that this education wasn’t just a matter of ‘I know a lot more than the others’, but the opportunity, especially in high school, to discuss a lot of issues. I remember, for example, that in those years—it was the 1980s—my friends who went to ITIS and Argentia occupied their schools. Even my friends who went to Carducci in Milan occupied their school, but we never occupied ours; we would never have even dreamed of occupying the school. However, this did not prevent us from having discussions and opening up debates, learning, and educating ourselves about everything that was happening in those years. In other words, there was no need to occupy the school because, after all, we were part of that world and that historical period, thanks in part to the school, which provided us with the tools to be there, always with a great deal of freedom, to be able to think differently from those who gave us this information.
And then another thing I associate with it, because unfortunately I tend to mix up the oratory and school, is the word gratitude, because 13 years may seem like nothing, but 13 years at that age are everything and really shape who you will be later on. And I’m not saying it was all roses and sunshine, absolutely not. I also got an eight in conduct, so I was never a nerd, I was held back, so I’m not saying it was the most beautiful, rosy, least tiring path of my life, on the contrary, it was one achievement after another, but it really shaped me in such a way that now, if I’ve made certain choices, if I make certain choices, if some people recognize certain positive qualities in me, I believe, in fact I’m sure, that in part, but largely, they derive from those 13 years of experience at the IMI.
Another fundamental thing I learned is precisely the question of a ‘life of service’. I am thinking of the nuns. I had many nuns as teachers at the time, nuns who truly dedicated themselves to others. Not all of them were nice to me, and I was not nice to all of them, so I had serious arguments with many of them and with some in particular, whom I remember. But this idea never left me, that is, of women who were there to serve, which at that time was an educational service and was a service done without, paradoxically, expecting anything in return. So this idea of putting one’s life at the service of others has followed me step by step, I believe, and is still with me today. So I really carry a beautiful memory with me.
It’s true that it was a private school, but it was never an elite school: my mother was a housewife, my father was a factory worker, but my brother and I went there. It was really another piece of home to be in, to grow up in, where—at the time, school lasted all day—your parents knew that if you were there, you were in a safe place; and I always felt safe there from every point of view.
Looking back on my journey, what I am most grateful for is that I was never denied the opportunity to engage with people who thought differently. I remember moments of debate during my early high school years when boys and girls from Argentia and Marconi came to visit us. At the time, those were the schools where political information was disseminated. The mass media also appeared on the social scene. In short, we talked about topics that you would not expect to find in a private school, or at least not in comparison with students from other schools and teachers from other schools. That was truly enriching, because that’s where my involvement in Manitese began, my involvement in the oratory began, and then my decision to get involved in politics, but really in the service of the city, which I hope I won’t lose sight of along the way.
I can only say THANK YOU to IMI.
Avv. Scaccabarozzi, current mayor of the city of Gorgonzola
