Stories and News No. 277
In Italy the assault by students continues.
Yesterday they reached the Senate and is now the turn of the Chamber of Deputies, although I read that a young man in Florence is left battered by the fighting.
The cause of the scandal, as often happens, is the reform that bears the name of the Minister of Education, University and Research Mariastella Gelmini.
From what I read online, the bill provides, among other things, funding cuts and fixed-term contracts for researchers, renewable once, from that some of the reasons for the revolt.
I do not want to discuss the decree.
I must say that for age reasons this is not the first student demonstrations against his ministry Reference I see.
I remember most the Movement of Panthera, in 1989.
In 1990 I attended my first year at La Sapienza University, in Rome.
I had already done some… disruptions of the natural order of the school, but seeing the campus in the hands of students, day and night, was a unique experience for me.
More than ever in that moment I felt what should not be just a feeling, but a true fact: the school - or university - is mine.
Theirs, now, damn time passing by.
The protests of those years was, incidentally, against the reform Ruberti, named by the Minister of Education, guilty of wanting to achieve too much privatization of the Italian universities.
Antonio Ruberti, who died in 2000, was part of the sixth Andreotti government, by center-left.
It has been about twenty years.
What has changed? This made me wonder.
What has changed in those who manage the education of my country?
So I went on the website of the Ministry.
It is important how you present yourself on the web.
It says a lot about you.
It's like the business card or the dress you wear when you show up for an interview.
It represents how you want others to see you.
Then I went to visit the U.S. Department of Education website, the equivalent of our Ministry.
The comparison was inevitable, and the differences that immediately popped me in the eyes made me understand why, if we don’t change the base, we will never improve…
The Story:
On the site of the Minister Gelmini there is on the left a picture of smiling children, a girl at the center with raised hand, eager to be questioned…
On the site of the U.S. Department there is at the top a photo of the head of the latter, the Secretary Arne Duncan, who gives a message that begins with this sentence: “As a country we need to improve dramatically the respect and admiration for teachers”…
On the site of the Minister Gelmini, next to the beautiful picture above, there is the heading of news, almost all government press releases, some clearly self laudatory…
On the site of the U.S. Department in the first column on the left there is a space dedicated to the Blog with recent posts and related issues for discussion:
On the site of the Minister Gelmini, next to the News, there is a column with other press releases…
On the site of the U.S. Department, to the right of the Blog space, there is a book divided into two tabs with some links, News and Features. Among the links of the first I see Arne (the head of the department) respond to questions…
To connect with the Ministry of Gelmini, on the site there is a link called URP, the dear Office of the Public Relations…
To connect with the U.S. Department there are Facebook, Twitter, Youtube...
Important goal of Ministry Gelmini is the recent reform, whose cuts have sparked a protest by students not seen for a long time…
The important goal of the U.S. Department is the Recovery Act, strongly desired by Obama, which led to a grant of 97.4 billion dollars, with 275mila jobs saved or created…
Apart from the difference between those who cut the funds and who increases them, in your opinion, which of the two institutions must show of caring more about students and teachers?
Stories and news: “invented” Stories, fruit of my imagination, inspired by “true” media News.
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