Now they are seriously angry, profoundly affected by the restrictive measures that have been suffocating teachers for two or three years, already severely tried by the scant consideration they receive, by the discomfort that accompanies services that should be intellectual, but which irresistibly slide in the routine.
From Rome to Milan, from Aosta to Palermo, thousands of students, teachers, ATA staff, managers and professional training operators took to the streets yesterday “against the new spending review cuts; for the renewal of the contract firm since 2009 and the return of the shots; to amend the law on pensions which prevents the entry of young teachers and ATA into the school; against the new useless and expensive competition and for a stabilization plan that gives certainty to the teaching staff and Ata included in the rankings; against the lengthening of working hours and to ask for adequate and certain funding and investments in technologies and innovations” as stated in the FLC CGIL press release.
To a certain extent, so much anger can be understood, considering how well known the bleak condition of teachers in Italy is. In recent days, the Eurydice report, one of the periodic studies of the European Commission, dedicated to the salaries of teachers and school heads in Europe, has brutally rattled off the figures: if in Italy, in 2011/2012, an Italian middle school teacher earns between a minimum of 24.141 gross euros per year and a maximum of 36.157, his French colleagues oscillate between 23.029 and 41.898, the Germans between 42.873 and 56.864, the Spanish between 33.662 and 47.190, the English between 24.430 and 41.594, the Belgians between 25.815 and 44.483. In short, as far as salaries are concerned, Italians are always bringing up the rear of the EU. Worse than the Italian ones are only the Greek teachers, with a salary ranging between 15.327 and 27.990.
It is true that the crisis is also affecting other countries. The cuts inflicted by the European troika on countries forced to adapt to austerity measures in exchange for financial aid, have led Greece to reduce teachers' salaries by 30%, Ireland by 13% for new hires in 2011 and further cuts by 20% for those who entered after January, Spain and Portugal by 5%.
The all-Italian suffering, however, is characterized by historical delays. The dilemma between professionalism and mission has ancient roots, as recalled by Gianfranco Giovannone – author of a 2005 but still current book “Why I will never be a teacher” – in a nice interview with “Corriere della sera” a few days ago. «The most incredible aspect – observes Giovannone – is the total impermeability of my colleagues on the wage question: most of them, due to a Deamicisian or Catholic tradition, believe that teaching is a mission much closer to volunteering than to an activity professional and therefore satisfied. The voluntary abnegation of the "laudable exceptions" ends up perpetuating the missionary aura and the vocational emphasis, thanks to which teaching today is perceived by young people as a fake profession».
But there is not only this. The perverse pact has less ancient and less noble roots – to which the trade unions, which are now thundering so loudly, have provided a not insignificant contribution – which sanctioned the principle of working little – or in any case not at best, opposing the evaluation and merit incentive – in exchange for earning little. The furious anathemas against the competition that has just been announced are a corollary of that subculture responsible for the decline of the figure of the teacher. Furthermore, a progressive "feminization" of the profession has not brought to the sector the contribution and wealth that women could have given, but only the residual nature of a job often done to reconcile home and family.
In the collective imagination of students, but also of families, teaching thus ends up representing a profession in decline, of little social prestige, of "losers" as Giovannone says in his book. European data seems to confirm all this. This is no country for teachers.
