Professor, tell us about the measures to which he was subjected?
Are has been subject to two disciplinary proceedings: one by the headmistress, the other by the Ministry, followed by An inspection with a kind of interrogation at school. The first The proceedings ended with a "censure" sanction. I look forward to it the outcome of the second one.
How did you get to the first disciplinary procedure?
There censorship follows a meeting that took place at school between the school manager And the parents of an Italian-Israeli citizenship pupil. These last complained of my alleged partisanness on the Palestinian question and the verbalization in the class name of the boy's name e of his Italian-Israeli citizenship.
The thing had actually gone differently. Starting from the second week of October I provided my classes some ideas of reflection on the Israeli-Palestinian question, with reference to educational values of the equality of human beings and the repudiation of the war.
During one of my lessons the above student explained that he was of Jewish religion and Italian-Israeli citizen and asked to read a document, he developed at home, to illustrate his point of View on the Israeli-Palestinian question. As usual, in respect for the right of word of all and all, and the plurality of Points of view, I agreed to the boy's request.
Per At the end of the lesson, as usual, I recorded in the register of the day's educational activities and I wrote down – such as testimony of pluralism – even the long speech, the name of the boy and his citizenship.
Subsequently I was summoned by the manager and I learned of the misunderstanding of the boy's parents regarding an act that, in their opinion, would have The child's privacy has been injured. Thus, in agreement with the manager, we have decided to remove the name of the pupil from the verbalization on the register, although they have never thought of having caused damage to The latter, but indeed of having enhanced its point of view. There citizenship of the boy was already known to the class.
Then came the second procedure ...
The second procedure follows the visit of three ministerial inspectors a school, which subjected me to a interrogation of about three hours on my didactic activities.
The dispute substantially accuses me of having done " glimpse " my " part orientation ”, And to have talked about for too long of Palestine during my lessons; of " lack of institutional sense ”, because I would have revealed the news of the inspection to the students Ministerial in progress - A secret of Pulcinella already in the public domain in the press - and the absence of debate in the college of teachers on relationship between education and genocide in Palestine.
Me It seemed to live a Kafkian situation already during the interrogation of the inspectors. I was asked for why I did lessons on Palestine at school and if, in dealing, for example, a topic like the First World War, I mention the different positions regarding the intervention in the conflict. They wanted me to make them a example of how I connected to current affairs the topics covered in class, e So away for three hours ...
His case had a strong media echo. Why, in your opinion, various newspaper articles have written the false?
Also the accusations and falsehoods of certain press against me, which have preceded the sanction imposed by the manager, were Kafkaesque. The The media lynching began with a blatant lie that I would have given the class a discriminatory task, asking them to comment on the Jewish boy's views on the situation in Palestine. I couldn't believe my eyes.
Who He knows me knows that I am anti -fascist and that they do not discriminate anyone. Not I even had to deny the news, because immediately the same class, in the face of published absurdities, did so in my place, spreading a written document in which he denied the existence of the task.
Other articles attacked the contents of my lessons. It has become a scandal even projecting a video of Amnesty International who denounces the apartheid in Israel, explain the difference between Judaism and Zionism, examine the positions of an ex -ambassador of Israel convinced of the need for " Destroy Gaza ", reflecting on the bombing of the hospital Al -Ahly which caused the death of more than five hundred Palestinians ...
AND A deceptive communication technique was used. It gives the feeling to the reader to touch something concrete with his hand, one unequivocal proof that one cannot fail to believe, not a simple opinion of the journalist. The same strategy used by Colin Powell In 2003, when I waved an Antrace's test tube, an alleged test, To justify the war he convinced the world with a lie: the false News that Iraq owned weapons of mass destruction.
A Another reason for the easy spread of the false journalistic is the cialtroneria with which some write by copying and gluing from articles of colleagues from other newspapers, without directly checking the Sources. Everything, in fact, began with an article by Corriere della Sera , to which the other newspapers have joined blindly. He also bother Salvini. I read several violent comments to some of his statements that insulted me and invoked my dismissal.
From in the face of the denial of the class that denied the existence of the phantom discriminatory theme, the fake factory is not stop. Some newspapers gave news of a declaration signed by twenty -one former Jewish students of high school who asked the Manager to remove from my position.
Not I have never known these students, who, evidently, for reasons a I unknown me, they lent their name for this squalid operation. Instead, the students and students who know me, those of my classes, spontaneously released declarations of solidarity towards me against these petty and unfounded attacks.
How did students and colleagues react?
Various Parents and teachers have shown themselves solidarity. As I said, all mine classes have solidarized through letters sent to the manager. Various students and students of other classes participated in sit-in in front of the high school expressing solidarity with me and protesting against attacks on freedom of teaching and in support of the Palestinian people. Pupils and pupils of other schools protested in front of the premises of the Corriere della Sera To denounce the criminalization of teachers who open the debate on Palestine And to solidarize with me.
What logic does it conceal, in your opinion, behind these attacks?
There fairy tale and the rhetoric of neutrality. These raids in mine freedom of teaching rest on clichés that presuppose a non -democratic ideological background and who interpret the figure of professor as an acrytic reproduction officer of the dominant narrative.
Who He accuses us of being "biased", he is telling us that we are not aligned and that for this we deserve public punishment. They want to do of sloth and the stupid and impossible principle of 'neutrality' guiding values of education.
There my school has proved inadequate in resisting pressure external, as it has not managed to protect the teachers in the performance serene of their programs, according to their educational methods.
This serious deficiency has also limited the opportunities for comparison e Learning: a conference on the Palestinian question, organized by pupils and pupils, he had been authorized at first by the manager. However, after receiving pressure from people who they considered " non -objective "The rapporteur of Amnesty invited, the principal cancelled the meeting.
A year ago the minister Valditara He addressed the same accusation of partisanosities to the High School Manager Leonardo da Vinci Of Firenze, who had written a letter to his students by condemning the neo -fascist violence carried out in front of the high school Michelangiolo. And immediately after 7 October 2023 the minister ordered inspections in Two high schools in Milan to discourage the student mobilization against the massacre in Palestine.
In your opinion, how should freedom of teaching be interpreted?
To educate it does not mean presenting a list of points to the class of sight. Educating is to form. We cannot consider the points of view existing as equivalent on the training level. Professors cannot Tell classes: " Also consider the existence of the fascist point of view and, if you like, espouse it ”.
We have the duty to enter into the merits of the educational contents to produce an awareness that puts in conditions to discern, for example, Between machismo And respect for the woman, between white suprematism and anti -racism, between fascism and anti -fascism, between classism and respect for the worker and of his struggles, and so on.
Leave us free to teach that we repudiate the war and the colonialism. The critical sense is not reached only with the acquisition of forms. Formalism condemns us to the equation of content. Form and content go together.
The activity of teachers is subject to continuous and systematic institutional manipulation. The Constitution It is paper and does not protect the freedom of teaching in fact. Ministers and managers welcome instrumentally or uncritically reports e pressure of private groups suffocating the freedom of teachers e students.
How do you judge the state of health of democracy in the school?
In schools is increasingly difficult to carry out the professor's profession, because Our function is increasingly aligned with the will of the managers school and governments. The space of critical reflection is always more small. In the colleges of teachers there is no discussion freely, we are become an organ that ratifies not ours.
THE principals take on the physiognomy of company managers, are not formats to promote education for critical thinking. The teachers They seem more and more intimidated by this condition.
Per Teachers' College of my school I felt the need to communicate my discomfort in continuing to work in the din of the bombs, as if nothing had happened. I tried to convey my discomfort reading among the "miscellaneous and eventual" a document in which I questioned myself on the meaning of the function of the teacher in the current conditions, but I felt that it was in itself offensive to our dignity as a teachers deal with this crucial issue in the residual phase of the agenda, the only one in which it is possible to deviate for some reason protocol, when you're ready to run away for the fatigue.
But The most important sign of the teacher's difficulty in reflection collective criticism is the progressive failure to the mother of all intimidation, the one that transformed the word "political" into a Taboo term. Thus, in the school minister who sterilizes everything, While we bring Pericles to pupils and pupils, they reproach us when we apply it by venturing into the mined field of the debate politic.
There Culture of equidistance cannot belong to critical people. Self There is an oppressed, it must be said that there is. If there is an oppressor, not We must be afraid to consider it such. These cannot be put different realities on the same level. We have to report the roots of war and explain to the boys and girls what the colonialism and imperialism.
The education It is intimately linked to this task, it is a political function in higher sense of the term. Only the ignorant denies it. In this sense We must absolutely talk about politics at school by rejecting each intimidation. This need for thought reproach us to claim.