«I reply as a journalist, like him, who unlike him has never lived in the Platonic Hyperuranium, but has always earned his bread by being a teacher». Introducing herself thus, as a journalist, the Calabrian professor Cinzia Paolina De Lio, in an article published in an online magazine in 2011, began a pointed reply to Gian Antonio Stella (“he”) who in those days, in the Corriere, had published a article on the data on teacher absenteeism entitled: «Sick teachers, in Reggio Calabria three times as much as in Asti». This was followed by a reasoned defense of the teachers of Reggio Calabria and their major obstacles (including geographical ones) compared to those of their colleagues from Asti. Nothing strange except that the teacher/journalist author is the Chioggia teacher who has recently been dismissed from her post after a long legal battle because out of 24 years of total service, she had not gone to work to 20 years between absences and long periods of sick leave.
The article
The Corriere article started from a figure published at that time in the Tuttoscuola dossier: on average, Reggio teachers fall ill 12.8 days a year. Three and a half times more than colleagues from Asti: 3.6. «Proven proof that, even after Brunetti’s tremendous offensive against slackers, the turnaround on absenteeism is still far away», observed Stella, referring to the then Minister of Public Administration (Berlusconi IV government) and his historic battle against the absenteeism of civil servants.
The difference is the environmental factor
Prof. De Lio, unable to reply on the numbers, which are not an opinion, replied by listing the enormous differences between the lives of a teacher who works in Asti and one who works in Reggio in terms of poor transport, dangerous road connections (La Salerno Reggio Calabria and the state road 106, «the highway of death») meteorological and also geographical adversities («It so happens that in the center of the province of Reggio Calabria there is that geological monument called “Aspromonte”»). Not to mention the shortcomings of the Calabrian school structures. In short, all these difficulties “make it so that the Calabrian teacher who works in Piedmont has no reason to be absent” while the one who works in the south has many reasons. Therefore «it is the “environmental factor” that creates the discriminating factor relating to the rate of attendance at school by teachers». This is De Lio’s conclusion, which she specifies that she writes and argues not only as a teacher but also as a philosopher and as a journalist and author of articles in “national circulation” publications.
The suspension
Beyond the effectiveness or otherwise of the arguments used to defend the (heroic) teachers of the South, in this long article-requisition, the teacher also recounts her personal experience as a teacher, when, after moving from the South to Trieste, she found herself to «suffer» a suspension procedure from the chair with transfer to the provincial school office: «From 11 September 2009 until 12 May 2010 I was removed from my position, I was paid, a substitute was also appointed in my place ‘it (I have to assume) paid for’. The professor does not explain herself and does not explain the reason for this suspension but she adds that during the period of work in the office she had duties that did not correspond to her legal status, therefore she was underemployed.
A round of appeals followed until she was sent back to the school she came from but “available”. In short, a story of injustice, according to her, which demonstrated a waste of public money, given that in the same school two teachers were paid for the same job: she and the substitute teacher, but only the second taught.
The Cassation
Now, this whole story, if re-read in the light of the current decision of the Court of Cassation to confirm the dismissal of Prof. De Lio from the role of teacher, could lend itself to a very different interpretation. In fact, the teacher was relieved of her duties by the Miur (deed confirmed by the Cassation) for the “absolute and permanent ineptitude for teaching” found after an inspection conducted in 2015 and 2016 in the school where she worked. The inspectors’ report speaks of inattention, disorganisation, “absence of logical thread” in the lessons, confusion in the explanations and “absence of objective criteria in attributing grades and the bad way of organizing and preparing the checks”.
Reached by journalists, the professor now guarantees that she wants to provide deeds and documents that will explain everything. And above all to want to personally follow the media aspect of the story. As a journalist and philosopher which she is.