Nowadays ,when it seems difficult to set the purposes in teaching, especially the ones of the humanistic disciplines such as literature, we should opt for a human and technical approach.

It seems that on the one hand, there must be teachers who inspire students by quoting poems and are able to motivate by introducing students to beauty, through their charisma and culture, teachers who, with their inspiration and personal skills, are able to revive the authors of the past and to stimulate the younger generations, just like in the approach of Professor Keating in “The fleeting moment”.

On the other hand, there are teachers who follow school programs and feel constrained by mostly bureaucratic routine and by the needs and levels of their students which are often not sufficient to achieve the minimum school goals. The latter, overwhelmed by the daily routine that often, as Pavese says, "cut their legs", forget or recall with distant nostalgia the passion that led them to take this path.

For all teachers these two positions are familiar and it seems difficult to find the right balance and an effective way to teach both teachers and students.

Can the ability to teach, to transmit beauty only be, like artistic inspiration, something that only some people possess or that belongs only to some moments in life, or can it be a skill that is learned and mastered with the time?

This type of emphasis on the ontological aspects of the teaching of literature is based on a broader research  (Ferri, 2020) about the value of teaching individual disciplines in the school of today.

From  first research results it had emerged that the innovation that the school needs, while attempting to get closer to the real world (Casaschi, 2018), could not be based solely on the use of new teaching methodologies. We should first of all define the value of what we teach. It seems that nowadays it is extremely necessary to remember that disciplines are nothing more than a privileged way of understanding the world, rediscovering those original links that have been forgotten today, as pointed out by Castoldi (Castoldi, 2018):

"This extension of the horizon with which to approach the educational task is inevitably reflected on the teacher's work, on his way of teaching and evaluating. The triadic teacher-pupil-cultural content relationship with which didactic action has traditionally been represented extends to life situations in which the cultural contents object of formal teaching at school are brought into play; the latter fully regain their profound meaning as cultural tools through which to act in their own life contexts, understand and face reality in all its manifestations (what else are disciplines, epistemologically speaking, if not tools progressively constructed by humanity to understand and intervene on the world around us ?!) "

From this assumption it was therefore decided to start the research, entering specifically into a particular discipline and investigating  contents and ways needed to return to its origins and whether this original gnoseological value is actually shared and perceived even today by  different teachers, since there are indications in this regard also in European and international documents (UN, 2015).

The objective of the current research, starting from a new reflection on the values ​​of literature rather than on its disciplinary aspects, is to identify which experiences can be proposed to students so that they can grasp the beauty and get the cognitive scope of it  and to suggest  the ways  to reach this goal starting from rediscovering the fundamental values ​​of literature.

The research started with the collection of results, promoted in the context of a collaboration with the Department of Communication Sciences of the University of Insubria, which involved about 50 teachers of Italian and foreign literature from private and state secondary schools and universities ,betwwen June and October 2020. The research, thanks to the professionalism and availability of the participants, intended to investigate the value of the teaching of literature, both in a broad sense and in today's society, in particular during the "delicate" historical moment we live in due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through focus groups and interviews, conducted in the presence and with the help of e-platforms, the teachers were given five questions, which were intended to introduce a global reflection and sharing of particular experiences by the interviewees . The questions would help to understand better the cornerstones of literature and consequently the most appropriate ways to teach it. The questions, shown below, have been formulated to be as open as possible, thus providing the opportunity for each participant to express as many aspects in their answers, related to their personality and experience. The questions from which the dialogue started were the following: 1. What is the value that literature can bring to school career? 2. How can literature contribute to knowledge of oneself and of the world? 3. What role can literature play in the interdisciplinary nature of the school curriculum? 4. What significance does literature have in today's and future society? Will it be possible to do without it? Why? 5. What should be the best ways to teach it? As explained so far, this focus group, rather defined as a dialogue, intended to include a very heterogeneous sample of teachers, not only in term of institutions and countries of origin, but also age, years of teaching and training; the interesting fact is that in many of the answers (they were decided to be kept anonymous), it is difficult to identify who might have given them , whether it is a university professor, a young English teacher, an Italian philologist, or a reader.

First of all, at the level of the method, it was noticed the emerging relationship between teachers of all levels and nationalities who were looking for the reason they teach and the value of teaching, beauty and taste of what they have glimpsed in literature. Let’s not take this for granted. Being often in a rush, struggling with tight deadlines and facing individualism, we forget that the relationship is the very essence of literature, beauty and the work of a teacher. In this research, focus groups and discussions between different teachers gave them the opportunity to get to know each other, discuss and enrich themselves in areas that have continued even outside the research itself. With regard to the analysis of the data collected, it emerged that enjoying one's own subject and rediscovering the origin of why this had fascinated us is something that most of the teachers believe should be experienced continuously; every time you have to propose an author or a text, don't forget to ask yourself why they have fascinated and interested you and try to rediscover it from a different perspective. The third fact that emerged is the usefulness of dedicating one's attention to the knowledge and use of teaching techniques and tools. They are essential for the teachers to give value to what they teach. Therefore, according to the interviewees, literature could be defined as a relationship within a relationship, that is, the most alive and competent aspect of reality. Thus what we need for the new century is a competent literature , or better ,live literature.

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