Rome, 13 June (LaPresse) – ‘Compared to the 2023-24 school year, when we first started recording attacks on teachers, there has been a clear decrease for the first time. There are about twenty fewer.’ This was stated by the Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, in an interview with “Il Tempo”. "We are coming out of decades of the delegitimisation of authority. I recall an incident that I also included in my book “The Revolution of Common Sense”. I had only just taken up my post at the Ministry when a teacher contacted me, telling me about one of her pupils who refused to switch off her mobile phone. When reprimanded, she replied: ‘I do not recognise your authority’. This is symbolic of the crisis in the relationship between student and teacher,” added the minister, emphasising that “there is certainly the issue of social media, which encourages aggression and rudeness. The other decisive factor is upbringing at home. I do not wish to generalise, but among some parents, who grew up in the wake of the cultural and educational trends prevalent around 1968, there is no longer a focus on a relationship that encourages young people to respect authority and develop a sense of responsibility. Sometimes we see parents acting as their child’s ‘advocates’, challenging teachers. A shift in culture and values is needed. Consider Michel Foucault, who went so far as to compare schools to barracks, prisons or hospitals. That is the same view that recurs in the rhetoric of a certain modern left when it accuses me of ‘disciplining’, ‘authoritarianism’ and ‘drilling’. Concepts that date back to 1968 and which we still hear today.”
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