Volunteer Life Volunteer Voice
Thessaloniki calling The story of the change that turned my life and brought me from school classes to European by Marco Scarangella volunteering
“There is nothing permanent except change”. With these words, the Greek philosopher Hera-
clitus summed up all his doctrine of change. Honestly, I’ve never really agreed with the thinker of Ephesus: for a good part of my life, I thought that each of us had a well-marked path to follow with determination and without hesitation. But in human life nothing is immutable and, borrowing another phrase from our Heraclitus, “Everything changes and nothing stands still”. In recent months a real earthquake has hit my life.
Since I was a teenager, my goal has been to
become a teacher. I was influenced by the my father, who taught (and still teaches) humanities in a high school. I loved the passion he put into reading, studying and preparing lessons, the idea of being able to talk about my favourite topics in front of an “audience” every day excited me.
friendly towards me, I faced those months putting in all the passion, dedication and professionalism possible.
During that time, I was sure that no other job allows you to try so many different crafts at the same time.
So, since then, I have set my entire school career If you are a teacher, you are more than that. You on following in my father’s footsteps. First high are a psychologist, a judge, a lawyer, a social school, then the faculty of humanities at univerworker, a poet, a historian, a graphic designer, sity, every period of my youth has been nothing a mediator, a computer scientist, a nurse and a more than a stage of approaching the final goal secretary. You have the opportunity to be a difof teaching. ferent version of yourself; every day gave me an After so many years of study and effort, finally, extra thrill that pushed me to commit even more in 2016, I managed to get my first job in human- to my work. ities at middle school. But unfortunately, very often in life, not all that I was excited; finally, my life project was starting glitters is gold. After the first beautiful experito come true! I admit that I also felt some anxiety ence in the teaching world, a little because of when I reached the desired goal; one is always some obstacles along the way, a little because of the feeling of having built a habit that inevitaafraid of losing it. bly began to present itself, in the following years That first experience as a teacher was incred- slowly my initial enthusiasm began to diminish. ible: despite the difficulties, the bureaucracy, If in the first year of teaching my spirit pushed and some older teachers not always being me to overcome all kinds of difficulties, then it
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