World Teachers’ Day: the Gilda conference to restore intellectual dignity to the teaching profession

This morning, at the Cavour Conference Centre in Rome, the Teachers’ Guild held a conference entitled: “Assaults and the School-Family Pact: towards a renewed focus on the teaching role within the school system”. To mark such a significant occasion as World Teachers’ Day, and thanks to the contributions of the speakers present – including Nicola Gratteri, Paolo Mieli, Flaminia Bolzan, Marco D’Eramo, Antonio Fundarò and Lucio Ficara, the conference aimed to highlight the serious increase in incidents of physical, verbal and psychological violence directed against teachers.

“I would like to thank Minister Valditara for taking part in our conference. This is an extreme and damaging consequence of the corporate model that began with school autonomy, which marked the start of the transformation of the school as an institution into a corporate entity and, consequently, the erosion of the central role of the teaching profession,” said national coordinator Vito Carlo Castellana. ‘The problem is,’ he continued, ‘that over the last 40 years we have moved from an extremely rigid school system to one of absolute permissiveness. What is happening today in schools and within families is the erasure of boundaries, where the teacher or parent is seen as a friend.’

Added to this is the fact that the governance of the ‘school as a business’ has undermined the central role of teachers and teaching, giving priority instead to bureaucratic and administrative obligations and a hierarchical management of schools. The role and dignity of teachers have thus been debased, stripping them of their intellectual value and commodifying knowledge.

Addressing the government, the aim of the conference was to sound a warning and put forward possible solutions. “Neither education nor the issue of violence,” says Castellana, “should be the subject of election campaigns or political theatrics. Schools need investment; they must return to the centre of the political agenda. We also have an urgent need for motivated teachers, including those on well-paid salaries.”
“‘Schools,’ said the national coordinator, ‘must resume the educational process; families must begin to take responsibility and act jointly; and teachers must regain the authority they have lost, setting clear boundaries whilst maintaining an inclusive approach. That school-family partnership, which no longer exists today, must be rebuilt. Schools,” he concluded, “must once again become schools, because they represent the future of our nation and are a common good for all.”