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The Maltese Herald

My full support and solidarity to the MCAST lecturer

—

by

Mark Camilleri
in

Having ADHD, ADD, autism or any other mental condition doesn’t give you the legitimacy to disrespect your superiors in the classroom. I would like to show my full support and solidarity to the MCAST lecturer who was filmed during an alteration with a student and is being challenged by a student with the police.

The Labour government is building a culture and system of impunity for organised crime, which has inevitably led to a situation where the government is promoting in our culture a sense of total disrespect for any form of authority. We are quickly losing all our moral authority points. A corrupt government that has corrupted the state, starting from the police and the attorney general, leaving very little remaining that a decent person could respect. This total disregard for authority will inevitably seep into every other nook and cranny of our society.

We can’t lose the authority that teachers hold over students in school and classrooms. It’s the second reference to authority that children get to learn after their parents and it is the stepping stone by which students and children learn to grow to respect the state and its authority.

Updated: The student should not have went with his case to the press if he doesn’t want to be scrutinised and I take the liberty of using any adjectives I like in such cases given I too share some mental conditions. I’m reiterate my support to the lecturer in a time when all our national references to authority are being abolished out of the sheer self-interest and narcissism of those who are in power.

Comments

  1. Banquo avatar
    Banquo

    Why not let full investigations take place before showing “full support”, Mark? Personally, I condemn all violence towards educators. However, I am finding myself unimpressed by the lecturer’s handling of the situation and feel one cannot reach a full judgement based on what we see in the video alone. We need the full back story.

    As far as the video goes, it seems that it is the lecturer who is escalating. He is the one who is shouting and invoking God (why?). Then, he does the big no-no of physically approaching the student. In 2024, you just cannot do that. You can make your point from a distance, you can speak to the whole class to explain what is going to happen and why (example: pause the lesson until everyone pipes down, terminate it, or whatever) and, if you cannot handle the situation, you can leave the classroom and ask for backup. You do not physically approach a student, let alone bang on his table.

    Being an educator in this day and age is admittedly very hard. Apart from dealing with mismatched levels of education in the same class (in the name of inclusion), one also is expected to be a counsellor, psychologist, quasi-parent and a host of other things, and then there is lack of respect towards one’s position by many students and parents alike. However, this still does not excuse lack of knowledge about crisis-handling. On the contrary, it makes it more essential that educators know how to put out fires without anyone getting hurt.

    Let’s not make the same mistake of the 1950s and other previous decades when it was automatically assumed that those in authority are right. That is what made abuse by priests, doctors and other professionals against the helpless so prevalent. I personally show qualified support towards the educator (he should not have been hit) but I want to hear the full back story and, more importantly, I think all employees in education need to learn from this episode. By showing unabashed support and stating that the lecturer was fully correct in how he acted, there is actually a higher risk of this happening again, because no attempt will be made to train educators about, and devise protocols on, crisis management.

    Reply
    1. Matthew Joslin avatar
      Matthew Joslin

      The message here is towards a wider narrative, roots of which arexsgspingvtge demise of a once wonderful country.

      The outcome of this court case is secondary relative to the implications to wider authority.

      Reply
  2. Tony avatar
    Tony

    Jo

    Reply
  3. Tony avatar
    Tony

    U dal gdur li ghandu iduru mieghi qed jahsbu ghax uza kelma lejbur partit tal haddiema kien xi darba fiz zmien mintoff imma issa spicca kollox ghax is sinjur sar miljunarju u fqir baba bil pipe ma halqu ghax ukoll press li partit tal haddiema gab imbarrazz u cheap labour prosit Joseph go to hell and take robber with you ghax il hsara li ghamiltu laqas il bambin mhu se jiranga no more vote for you both go to hell

    Reply

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