Genoa – There are group dynamics and this must be taken into account, but there are also material conditions that make things damned difficult. If it is tiring to “hold the class”, when it is there in front of you, while you teach, “running a school” is a bit complicated. The first element is linked to the fact that what one has to direct is not there in front of it. The teachers are each * in their own classroom, you cannot attend every entrance to the school where you should check that the systematic delay of the students is not a mere consequence of that of the teachers and there is a widespread form of silence that it is symptomatic of a “live and let live” culture closely connected with the “maniman”. It is not surprising, after all, if this mindset leads to the drifts of the illnesses of the fighters on New Year’s Eve, to the serial strikes on Friday, to the crafty cards and to the mail thrown in the bins which are just some examples of the many inefficiencies that we often report when we are victims, but on which a noisy minority takes a seat if they have the opportunity. Of course, not all *. A visible minority that “teaches school”. And the silent majority is divided into two parts (the number of which I leave to estimate the * reader / trice). One who suffers from the damage to the social credit of his profession (applies to teachers, as well as to / the police officers / them urban * and / the postin *) and the other who tolerates because he may need to benefit from the ” advantages ”of this“ culture ”and therefore it is better that things remain as they are.
Working in this climate is not easy, I said, because a * school principal * is simultaneously a superior and an educational leader. In the role of the first he must govern operationally and in this sector he pursues the latecomers *, the defaulting ones, those who insult the colleagues *, those who raise their hands with the students *, those who are absent unjustified and so going on and on, but then we find these same people in the Academic Board to intervene with arguments that are manifestly fallacious, but which smooth the hair on the mirror side of the sense of duty, in a context in which “taking a stand” means defending professional dignity, is true, but also to expose oneself in the large group. And then it is almost inevitable to keep quiet. Withdraw.
The majority of the teachers are made up of serious professionals. The context within which we force this majority to work is fatal because group dynamics represent a strong limit to one’s nature, making the expression of one’s beliefs a price that professionalism pays for everyday serenity. As a result, you are often unwilling to pay this price. “The price that good people pay for disinterest in public affairs is that of being ruled by evil people,” said Plato.
It is therefore necessary to clarify these problems because if on the one hand we managers are perceived as those who ask more power to be sheriffs, in essence, things are very different. Many of us are exasperated by this type of relationship in which, it must be reiterated, we find ourselves exposed personally having to choose between the ethics of our profession and compliance with attitudes that we should pursue under current legislation.
Whenever a head teacher pursues a serial latecomer, he risks being accused of mobbing. Whenever a school principal verifies manifest professional inadequacies, he risks being accused of bullying. Every time a school principal issues a disciplinary measure, he has to put a steep price into the account, not only in terms of the relationship, but also in terms of the consequent bureaucratic legal consequences. If he chooses ethics, he must give up his profession, having to devote himself to litigation.
All of this is certainly a partial view of the problem, but in this column we can only face the problems by small suggestions and, indeed, put forward some proposals. Looking around us, I would say that the solutions are easily detected by the good practices that are taught to us from other countries. The first shows us how the “College of Teachers” as we understand it in our country, the son of the delegated decrees of 1974 copied in the Consolidated Act of 1994, is not useful for cultivating autonomy and efficiency. The Board of Teachers thinks of itself as a “Permanent Assembly of Statutory Auditors” and not as a community of professionals that deliberates on educational advances. As an example, the discussions about “DaD yes / DaD no” on the occasion of the weather warnings are enlightening. Vote whether to update on the DDA, as I wrote previously (by collecting a letter of protest from the union), or whether to “remove the bitter cup from oneself” can have, and does, frankly embarrassing results. Imagine if, during a pandemic, the “College of Doctors” of Hospital X met to decide whether to update themselves on the containment protocols of Covid-19 in the health sector. It would be manifestly ridiculous, but the risk of an enlarged collegiate body producing embarrassing deliberations is high. Of course, some * my colleagues * are also embarrassing when they work in the shadows to pursue their own ends, but sometimes I understand them because working only on the argumentative level, openly, does not produce appreciable results. It is therefore necessary to reform the collegial bodies within which teachers work for commissions. Deliberating commissions. People who study cards can work in the commission. Theoretically they should do it all before a college meeting, but if I submit a three-page document well in advance, I also happened to do it in vain for eighteen times, this will be read by very few people and this must be taken into account. “Knowing in order to deliberate” said Luigi Einaudi, and this sentence should be clear to those who pride themselves on the culture and knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary to rush towards the reforms of the collegiate bodies so that the governance of the school is transformed, where the managers can openly discuss in these commissions composed of experts about what we are talking about without those decisions being put to the assembly ratification because in that office will speak to the person who has undergone a disciplinary measure and wants to make you pay, the trade unionist who sees the effects on people’s quality of life, but instead of discussing it at the union table, makes a political battle in the Board, while the silent majority tends to withdraw for many reasons, some of which I have listed in this article.
The alternative is the status quo. Legislation that has allowed us to innovate to tackle the pandemic, but which has remained inactive for twenty years and will return to being so soon after. Executives who try to innovate and, exasperated by the surrounding conditions, also do it in a way that I can briefly define rude, and teachers who will continue to lose their social credit because the service will always be compressed within the limits of a national collective bargaining agreement written knowingly in order to anesthetize current legislation.
Of the fact that the trade unions want to renew the contract signed on April 19, 2018, expired that same year, and that in that contract it was written that by the month of July the parties would agree on the corpus of Art. 29 “Disciplinary responsibility for teaching and educational staff”, and that this agreement between gentlemen has remained a dead letter, let’s talk about it another time.
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#Useless #War #Teachers #Headmasters