A teacher from Modena gives a 3 to students who skip the test, the principal punishes her and the judge blames her. Chronicle of an educational disaster.
I was a fifteen year old, in fifth grade, when I got the first and only A of my school career. He gave it to me there French teacher. Not due to insufficient preparation, but due to a wrong behavior. I did well at school and, to avoid the reputation of being a nerd, I used to pass my homework. To everyone. That day, outside school, a classmate asked me to borrow my notebook to copy my French exercises. I gave it to him without hesitation but he, unfortunate, disappeared into thin air. He had seen fit to skimp on lessons, the stinker, by taking my notebook with him.
When in class, during the lesson, the teacher asked to see my exercises, I candidly confessed the truth to her: “I don’t have the notebook because I gave it to my classmate who had to copy it.” She was furious. He scolded me. And he put me 2 on the register. Without telling me, anyway. He showed it to my mother a few days later during one of the routine interviews. “Do you have an idea on how to fix this disaster?” Mom asked me as soon as I got home. And I found it.
The shock sentence in Modena and the collapse of authority
This little episode from my school past came to mind the other day, when I read some news that really struck me. We are in one Modena high school. A mathematics teacher gives a bad grade (3) to three students who were absent on the day of the test. And it comes punished by the principal. Reason: the grade is an evaluation of performance and cannot be used to sanction bad behavior. The teacher doesn’t agree and appeals against the principal’s decision. But the court found her wrong. Appeal rejected. And so, in the blink of a sentence, entire generations of teachers accustomed to threatening their students with the classic “if you don’t behave well I’ll give you a 3” are liquidated. And my French teacher is also dismissed, for overdoing it she gave me a 2 instead of a 3.
Naturally the sentence will be highly motivated, legally flawless and the principal will have respected all the circulars and guidelines of the school management to the letter. I don’t doubt it. But it still seems absurd to me. What kind of teacher is a teacher who can’t give a 3 to someone who misses a test? What type of teacher is a teacher who cannot use good grades to reward and bad grades to punish? What kind of professor is he who cannot sanction not only those who are not prepared, but also those who do not commit themselves, those who are lazy, those who disturb, those who violate the rules of civil life and good behavior? I’ll tell you what kind of teacher he is: a professor halved. Depowered. Emptied. Deprived of every instrument and every educational possibility. And then, sorry: how can a teacher gain respect if he is disavowed every time by the principal or a judge? How can he be credible if the court cancels his grades, notes, warnings and even failures?
The Tribunal of Repeating Donkeys and à la carte voting
Pay attention: once upon a time, if you failed at school, you were grounded. Now go to the TAR, also called Court of Repeating Donkeys. There, at the TAR, every donkey can obtain the desk promotion. And also à la carte voting. Did you get a 5 on your class test? The TAR says you deserve a 6. Do you get an 86 at maturity? The TAR changes it to 100. The teacher’s authority now counts for less than the two of spades when the trump is diamonds.
How can we be surprised, then, if our schools become suburbs of violence, factories of the ignorant, places where education has left room for perdition? “Once upon a time, when I entered the classroom, everyone stood up,” an elderly teacher told me. «But now everyone is already up. The problem is that I can’t make them sit down.” Once upon a time he might have told them: “If you don’t sit down I’ll give you a 3.” Now, if he did, he would risk being fired.
The remedy I found to patch up after that 2nd in high school was a gigantic one research on Molière. The teacher really appreciated it. And I not only learned French a little better, but above all I learned that the mistakes are paid. And that you have to trust the right people. I never stopped thanking that 2 because it taught me more than a thousand exercises on the conjugations of aller and avoir. And I honestly think that the biggest injustice we are doing to our kids is taking away their right to take 3 (or even 2) when they misbehave. And, above all, take away the pleasure of making amends.
