A fake school to receive the Minister Gelmini

The visit was organised in the smallest detail, in order to prevent any incident, and any possible encounter with teachers and students, who were “non-aligned”. This was the scene described by some teachers at the Falcone Institute during last week’s visit by the Education Minister, Maria Stella Gelmini (which was announced at the last moment, even to the media.) The secrecy and surveillance system, which was put in place, drove the teachers to complain: “Being treated as potential disruptors of the peace is outrageous.” However, the visit behind closed doors did not prevent the Minister from running into a diplomatic incident during the dinner at the MAGA Museum. Meanwhile, the students have reported episodes, including problems to the school structures.

The visit, on 12 November, to the Falcone Institute in Gallarate, by the Education Minister, Maria Stella Gelmini was a reminder of darker times in our and other people’s history, when any element of disturbance would be eliminated. Anything that did not fit in would be removed. In this specific case, the unwelcome elements were the teachers and students of the institute itself, who, for the occasion, were asked not to come to the school for the afternoon or evening. Any legitimate request for an explanation was evasively, and sometimes impolitely, declined.

It was only on the following day that the grotesque splendour of the secret meeting became apparent. The Minister had visited a half-empty school, surrounded by a group of students/photographers and cooks that had been carefully selected in accordance with inscrutable standards. Her words of praise for such a wonderful school were not always in the sort of Italian one would expect from a Government Minister; our beaming managers stood before a sumptuously laid table and, at the end, a schoolteacher gave anxious explanations of how to use the multimedia interactive whiteboard, which magically appeared, with the teacher herself, for the occasion.

The feeling we have is one of great bitterness. we don’t know whether the order to “evacuate” the school was given by people in high places because the Education Minister was afraid, and maybe rightly so, of direct confrontation, or whether the initiative was caused by our overzealous headmistress, who wanted to give our illustrious guest a few hours of peace; it is certain that a serious injustice was done to a class of workers who have the important task of educating the adults of tomorrow, and to their students who are the real protagonists in the world of education.

Being treated as potential disruptors of the peace is outrageous.

Gallarate,

Cristina Luoni and another 40 teachers