School, the director of Genoa: «The children on their knees? Now I’ll explain how it went “

Did the photo represent a moment of the lesson?
“It is true that this photo represented a moment of didactic activity, but extrapolated from its context it lends itself to interpretations. Indeed, there was a lightness that we will evaluate and verify.

What was happening when it was taken?
“The children drew, freely and in the way that a difficult situation allowed them but that the teachers were facing. In a school of 900 students 400 desks are missing: we are waiting for them, they assured me that they will deliver them this afternoon. However, we have chosen to reopen the school despite a difficult situation, even for auxiliary staff, with minimal security conditions. We did it so as not to leave the children at home, it seemed a bad sign.

So were there any delays in reopening?
“Look, I am a new director, recently hired, until last year I was a literature teacher: but I must say that I found a school organized in time. Even the supplies for the desks had been requested on time, and a great effort was made by the entire school to ensure openness and service. But objectively, companies are late in delivery, because they encountered an exceptional load.

Why didn’t the children have anything to put the papers on?
“If we could have used the old meters, we just wouldn’t have asked for the new ones. The classroom was empty to present it clearly and allow for faster assembly of the new desks.

Can children be kept in a chair for many hours?
“Not of course not. But we open with reduced hours: the first two days only two hours. We were careful to be able to open safely, for two hours it was possible to organize educational activities with a more playful environment. Ours are not children subjected to the barbarism, they were drawing in an atmosphere of absolute serenity and freedom. It hurts me a little to see that these feats spoil a good moment, which was the first day. I hope their parents have protected them at home “.

Who posted the photo?
“A teacher, and he sent it to his parents, thinking he was showing what they were doing in class: he had to research this properly, it is a questionable action. Not everything we do can be shared and what we put on the web is beyond our control: but exploitation is a much more serious action.

Governor Toti, who posted the photo and reported the case on Facebook, did he call you?
“No, I didn’t hear it.”

Do you think it was a grueling reboot this year?
“Yes, but it was a necessary exit, the country needed it, the boys needed it. He collided with the long-standing problems of the school’s bureaucratic machinery, attributable neither to the current minister nor to her predecessor, but to a structural problem, which since working for almost 20 years has presented these critical issues. We should think of less striking reforms, darker but real and concrete, to reorganize the entire bureaucratic apparatus, so that on September 1 the schools can be equipped with everything they need: no team starts the championship playing in eight ”. .

Will you now categorically ban anyone from posting school photos?
«The regulation already exists, it depends on the professionalism of each one of the teachers to apply it. But I will put the question to the teachers again.