A proposal for a new Education Act, which will eventually be passed with so many amendments that the original content will be distorted to suit the wishes of the “administrators” of the education system, may be good or bad, salutary or miserable, so long as it is applied as before , i.e., severe from time to time, subject to punishment, decent in general and stupid in the main features.

In Romania, there are no deeply or superficially thought out laws, but amendments and changes that cause an increase in the lack of clarity in the already vague laws and confusion – with the help of bribery in exceptional cases – in the charity laws. In both cases, the theory is oriented in such a way as to make legal practice difficult to understand, intellectually cumbersome and time-consuming – ergo, most of those directly affected by this law have no idea how to apply it, and therefore do not even try to enforce it diligently. Referring exclusively to pre-university education, not necessarily following the instructions established in the regulations, statutes and the law on education, it is enough to try a thorough analysis of the activities of the public education teacher from several points of view, the last of which will belong to the subject itself.

What does a pre-university teacher do in Romania? From the point of view of the legislator and expert in the field of education, who writes reports and sets rules from the office or between two workshops, mostly of European inspiration, the teacher, from the primary grades to the secondary school, has many duties, starting from teaching-learning- assessment to the moral orientation of the school community. Competences are numerous and endless: professional and didactic, complementary and transversal, etc. Orders and procedures are laid out for the teacher as for a soldier in peace or war. When he is allowed to think independently, the teacher has the right and is obliged to act according to the principle “in the spirit of the current school routine and in the interests of the student.” It is this combat pressure placed on the shoulders of the Romanian teacher, who was handled from above and suspected from the beginning of insubordination and incompetence, that makes reliable models of teachers almost unknown to the public – and launched ad hoc in the media to create an uncomfortable impression of puppets or actors stand-up comedy. It’s like an army with iron soldiers on paper, absolute, flawless patriots, but without heroes and without victories (neither milestones nor big ones). In summary, the abstract model of the teacher proposed by the Ministry of Education is a model yesman servile, but whose brain is wired into a machine to grind the orders, briefings, and operational procedures sent blind and blind by “mastery”, the General Staff of educated Romania. Inspectors, colonels and infamous generals, professionalized by the party, treat their inferiors as baseless peasants (novice teachers), humble corporals (permanent teachers), sergeants and platoons up to the second rank, second lieutenants with the first rank and only in old age, lieutenants or , at most, captains, persons with senior management experience (former inspectors, on the other hand, are considered permanent in the reserve). The dialogue between superiors and inferiors regarding the application of the rules is the only formalized exchange of ideas – often touching on the comic absurdity of Private Švejk in verbal arguments with his superiors, such as Lt. Major Lukasz, a hero symbolic of his downfalls. for the collapse of the empire (for us it would only be about “țarișoara”).

As for parents, if they are really engaged in raising and teaching their children, then they have completely different expectations, rather psychological than educational: a primary school teacher should be a kind of distant relative who spoils and teaches the child at the same time. A high school teacher has the task of easing the way for a student in a turbulent period of his development and disciplining him by unknown means, but solely on the basis of personal charm, while the elder looks at how to protect the teenager from temptation. , but not allowing himself to punish him for mistakes and draw his attention in an entertaining way (“useful” learning during grammar school and high school includes, in the average case of serious parents, only grades obtained after passing national assessments and bachelor’s exams). Romanian parents who do not participate in their child’s education – and this for various reasons, from abject poverty and vast ignorance to hostile indifference to discredited public institutions – send their child to school for safety, nurse up to the age of 16 and, no less important, completing the number of classes sufficient to be able to later enroll in a driving school.

The head of the educational unit usually expects his colleagues to perform two large and broad tasks: to keep students in the classroom during lessons (so that there are no claims and claims from parents – we can talk about the role of the teacher as a watchman clever, because the defense will be through mobilizing rhetoric) and, if the director has been in office for many, many years, not to make claims to take his place in the established hierarchy. These are, in fact, the most painful problems of many directors of the education system. Needless to say, the director is a teacher himself. Many of those who have reached this position forget about their work, which they no longer do as it should be, that is, exemplary and motivational, and consider themselves elevated to a step that allows them to watch from afar, but somehow uncomplicated, a profession that they themselves have. Many, many teachers become principals gendarmes of their colleagues, maliciously internalizing the image of an Orthodox barracks or a monastery emanating from the ministry’s bureaucratic kitchen. Everything is done “to keep the peace” or “so as not to disturb anyone”, which is tantamount to hiding the mess under the rug. Romanian education directors complain the most about the existing system dysfunctions (“if I had to make a decision…”, “God, it’s already impossible…” or “from my point of view, it would be…”), however only between the four eyesas if by themselves would be outside what they challenge, condemn, curse, despise, criticize, ironize, ridicule, etc.

In collegial relations, the “office” perceives the professor in different ways, first of all as a “civilian”, and then as a person, as a personality, as an intellectual education, and only with the passage of time as merits recognized or proven shortcomings as a teacher. Although the approach finally seems to be taking its natural course, even here the play of mirrors takes strange turns. A good teacher is one who does not upset anyone, does not make any demands, gossips a little (there is no such thing at all) and does not experience difficulties with the discipline of students. A bad teacher is not in the lexicon of office colleagues, or at least it is a teacher who does not specifically come to classes, does not “dominate” in classes and never helps anyone with school projects and activities, which is almost never found. anywhere Despite his poor training, the professor minimally integrates into the life of the office, like a soldier in a company. The closest to the profile of a bad office teacher is, at the top!, a teacher who does his job against the instructions of the education system: comes to classes on time, discusses the order, methodology, etc. from clear positions, without fears and ridiculous concessions, he has excellent results with students who respect him, he knows what is happening in general and sometimes in detail in the lessons, he does not gossip behind his back, but he can comment publicly without the risk of making a mistake, completes schoolwork independently, or at least studies it carefully and personalizes it, and generally shows courtesy and common sense. In addition, he may have intellectual concerns and critical thoughts, which inevitably triggers a mechanism of fear among fellow teachers and the horror of the principal: “He thinks he’s the boss.” The Romanian office is a story in itself, built on something other than a passion for education and a respect for at least decent, if not exemplary, professional behavior. Why is this happening? After all, no one from the General Staff ever thought of offering courses after 1989 teaching on improving labor relations in educational institutions. It is true that even then the problem will not necessarily be solved, but at least we all recognize that it exists because the need for such courses is imposed.

From the point of view of the school secretariat, a teacher is someone who “does nothing else”, “does not know the law like we do”, “does not carry the weight of reports and situations”, “does not keep important files”, “does not register students in databases”, does not know at all the science of bureaucracy. From the union’s point of view, the teacher is a dues-paying “constituency” who has no right to leave the ranks, the union appears to be mandatory (principals who do not have a significant number of colleagues unionized in one way or another to receive phone calls warning about this – syndicationpower).

For the teacher himself, his work brings a number of difficulties and certain satisfactions, the greatest of which is the joy of working with people who are studying, with children and adolescents who have not yet been irreparably damaged by the surrounding social values. The confusing professional situation includes low or modest salary (without going into sociological details related to the patriarchal and sexist culture in Romania, the low salary is the result of statistical circumstances in which, unlike Scandinavian countries and Western Europe, we have a devastating percentage of women -teachers in the pre-university environment), insufficient for the needs of a decent life in Romania (but 80% of the local workforce can complain about it), chaotic authoritarianism in the system, lack of transparency and predictability in the functioning of schools, the demands of some parents who do not understand financial and educational state-imposed restrictions, and last but not least, terror Softwarepsychological, which is engaged in by high school students of the school unit. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro