The news came during the International Day of Happiness, while I was immersed in correcting some homework, here, hundreds of kilometers away from the high school where I met him, from which I learned and where I grew up.
I’m sure many knew what an amazing person he was Ugo Tesone: a father, a partner, a pioneer of Lyon basketball and a former Scandone Avellino basketball player in the 80s.
For us at the “Rinaldo d’Aquino” Scientific High School in Montella, he was the professor of philosophy and history.
I remember vividly the first day I saw him. He was wearing a light gray sweatshirt slightly damp with sweat, tall and imposing, while shooting baskets, because he liked to do it during breaks, between one lesson and another. I remember the rubbery smell of that orange ball, the sound of it bouncing and echoing through the gym. We hadn’t had him as a professor yet, since we were in the two-year period and philosophy would have been a subject for the three-year period.
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We knew the legends that circulated around his figure: everyone respected and feared him, because we knew that it was forbidden to make mistakes with him. He was a trained, reserved and authoritarian teacher, with a deep and cavernous voice. Yet, despite everything, that day fate wanted me to be in the gym during physical education class and chance decided that he missed a three-point shot, causing the ball to bounce off the backboard until it ended up in front of me, so that I could grab it instinctively. He came closer, I returned the ball shyly and he said: «Come on, come and have a shot with me too! Let’s ring the bell.” I stammered and replied: “But professor, I’m not capable, I’ve never done it!”. And he replied to me with words that left a profound mark on me and which became my lifelong mantra: «And you give up before you even try?! If you don’t try, you will be left with regret. After all, what are two shots?
I was in the midst of adolescence and no one had ever said anything like that to me, no one had ever told me you can try, you can do it. That day I met not only professor Ugo Tesone, the institution, but I met the man, I met Ugo. The person to whom I dedicated both degree theses, an example of wisdom and knowledge.
The anecdotes are lost over the course of five years of high school and beyond: the first day he entered class and introduced himself in a way that few will forget, through the attention threshold line. His educational and life lessons, his written and oral tests, which just thinking about them made me stomach ache due to their difficulty. I will never be able to forget the euphoria and tears of happiness when I passed the university exam in Philosophy of Law with 30 cum laude, thanks to his questions and lessons which I had followed with enthusiasm.
We all admired him, but for me he was something more, he was truly a guide who accompanied me towards my current passions and ambitions. I still hear his sound resonating in my head and in my heart Is it true or not?or during the written tests when, in order not to respond to any help we asked him for, he responded with: from now on I will have a short-term memory, I already don’t remember anything, not even who I am. Good work!.
We even gave him a nickname, the Demigod , the fusion of his name with Plato’s demiurge, the one who puts order in chaos. The beard that framed his strong features made him seem like an authentic Greek philosopher to many of us. The trips, the Comenius project in Lithuania where I discovered his joking side, his musical talent with the guitar and the HTTP personality test he subjected us to, resulting in an activist personality.
He greeted us with a thunderous greeting Goodnight mothers-in-law! during educational trips, when we had the room communicating with his. The discussions, the confessions about one’s dreams, the requited and unrequited loves, with accompanying advice.
I remember when he recommended me in fifth year to keep an eye on the first classes, because he trusted our and my judgment. When he made me give a lesson on Nietzsche to the whole class, because the day before, now in my senior year, he had argued with my father, telling him that I had a gift and a passion for philosophy and history. Even during university it continued to be, at least for me, a point of reference.
Few people know that he was a somewhat superstitious person and for this reason he gave me a key ring with a lucky Neapolitan croissant for my graduation, which I still jealously guard. The last conversations with him date back to the moment in which I told him that I had finally embarked on the path of teaching and I shared with him the photos of some of my students’ homework gone wrong in which I told him: «Prof, I think that today I I can understand it a little more.” He was like Robin Williams’ character, Professor John Keating. An inspirer and a ferryman of hearts, capable of giving to those who knew how to grasp it.”vital impetus much praised by the philosopher Henri Bergson.
We will forever keep his lessons and words with us, passing them on in turn. Because if I am who I am and many of his students are who they are, it is also and above all thanks to him. From the passion for teaching to politics, because as he once told me when talking about Giordano Bruno: «If you have a passion, Damiano, you have to defend it to the end and cultivate it».
The last time we discussed a song, in front of a mechanical workshop in Bagnoli Irpino. The song was Nobody wants to be Robin by Cesare Cremonini, we focused precisely on the part he plays meanwhile the days that pass by you see them leave like trains that don’t have tracks, but paper wings and how many useless idiots on the street or on Facebook who think they are geniuses, but talk at random while we leave each other at night, we cry and then we sleep with dogs.
Today we all feel more alone, but his figure and his person will continue to live through us and our actions, in our hearts, especially for those who have undertaken the path of teaching, following his example. Who knows what he would say if he saw us teaching today, partly as he did.
Perhaps he would have said, smiling at us, peremptorily but proudly Good work! .
2024-03-21 19:25:13
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