No miraculous reforms or adequate salaries. The value of the teacher in Italy struggles to translate into social or economic recognition. Thus the school can only be reborn from the bottom: by those who live there every day, with preparation, enthusiasm and common sense
Not much to expect from above. Not in the next decree, not in the next government, not in the next “epochal reform”. For too long the Italian school has lived waiting for a change that does not arrive, and in the meantime it is wearing out: in the peeling walls, in the digital registers that are half-functioning, in the newspaper headlines that describe it as a place of failure, of listlessness, of disillusionment. We talk about school when there is an occupation, a demonstration, an upheaval – for better or more often for worse. Yet, school remains one of the few spaces where something can still happen. Not by decree, but by choice. Not by mandate, but by responsibility. Because – to put it bluntly – school is made by people. And so, it’s up to us, despite everything.
For example, despite inadequate salaries – and in Italy it affects many – but, in the case of schools, not dignified ones. If you look at Europe, the economic comparison is merciless: in Italy a teacher at the beginning of his career earns around 24,300 euros gross per year (according to Eurydice and AgenSIR data) while in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden or Ireland the starting point is figures ranging from 33,000 to 38,000 euros. Beyond that, the problem isn’t just the nominal comparison: according to the latest report Education at a Glance of the OECD, the salary of Italian teachers is on average around 30% lower than that of other full-time graduate workers, compared to an average OECD difference of 17%. In short, the economic recognition is not proportionate to the training required nor to the educational responsibility that the profession entails. And, as a result, perceived value suffers. Things that everyone knows, even without data at hand, yet nothing ever happens to resolve this enormous problem that makes many new graduates choose not to teach, discouraged by a “non-career” and an unseemly salary that barely allows to pay a monthly rent in a big city.
On a social level, the situation is no better. The news of recent years has multiplied the episodes of verbal and physical attacks on teachers, often by students or parents. According to a survey cited by Eurispes (data reported by ANSA in February 2024), one in four high school teachers has suffered at least one assault during their career. It is a partial figure but sufficient to photograph a climate of growing tension.
On a symbolic level, the status of teachers in Italy remains among the lowest in Europe: in a search for Global Teacher Status Index (Varkey Foundation), only 16% of respondents are convinced that students really respect their teachers. The social role of teachers is fading and is not only obscured by the growing cases in the news, but by a social system that debases their role, questioning every request and every judgement. Added to all this is daily fatigue: a study published on PubMed (2011) estimates that approximately 20% of Italian teachers – however the reference is to a sample of only 508 teachers – present significant symptoms of burnouta sign of a structural malaise which, if not addressed, risks emptying the profession from within. There’s worse, certainly, because teachers don’t even remotely experience the work rhythms of other professions, on the contrary, but first of all it’s not a competition to see who’s going to have a nervous breakdown first, and then the set of factors listed above is enough to make you feel a certain embarrassment, in a public forum, in saying that you are a teacher. It doesn’t happen for any other profession that can be accessed with a degree, and it should give us pause.
As if that weren’t enough, there are those who go so far as to imagine that artificial intelligence could soon replace teachers. We started with Dad, and with unparalleled speed we have come to confuse an encyclopedia of knowledge such as AI with teaching made up of calibration in daily intervention, of emotion, dialogue and daily rhythm: because school is not just the transmission of content, it is relationship: with teachers, with knowledge, with books, with peers, with the institution, with others. No platform will ever be able to replace the presence, the gaze, the voice: in Dad this was understood, although it was useful in emergency moments, when Dad was abused, keeping schools closed much, too much compared to the rest of Europe. Artificial intelligence may also be a precious ally, but never a substitute: a teacher is not irreplaceable because he “explains better” or “knows more”, but because he is with – with the students, with colleagues, with the community. And it is in that “being with” that the whole meaning of school comes into play.
It is therefore up to us teachers to decide whether to transform every hour into a bureaucratic ritual or an opportunity to meet. It’s up to us to break the negative spiral of complaint and try to restore meaning and quality even when everything around seems to say the opposite. It is up to us to remember that the lives of others – of our students, colleagues, parents – are not inconveniences to be endured, but living matter to be understood, welcomed, educated. You don’t need heroism, but craftsmanship; not vocation, but professionalism and a bit of will. You need seriousness, preparation (of course!), and that spark that lights up a lesson when the person teaching really believes in it. If we want a better school – more solid, truer, more just – we must start, here and now. Improving it a little every day: in words, in gestures, in the way we enter the classroom. Because school, for better or for worse, is something simple and radical at the same time. And we are the school: we cannot wait for someone to change the rules, so let’s change the way we live them.
