Arguments and incorrect behavior among students are often an excellent aid used by teachers to be able to address certain topics in class and draw educational lessons from them. What happens, though, when these topics concern sexuality? It is the heart of a legal dispute involving a substitute teacher from the Dante Alighieri primary school in Cesena. The teacher was fired for talking about sexuality and procreation in class after two pupils had argued heavily and used strong words of a “sexual or corporal nature”. On that occasion, the teacher intervened first by stopping the conflict, then using the latter as a starting point to discuss sexuality with the children. From one day to the next, she found herself dismissed for just cause with cancellation from the rankings, ordered by the Ministry of Education. An unacceptable decision, according to the teacher, which she decided to take legal action by turning to the Forlì court. However, the appeal was rejected by the magistrates. The teacher then appealed the sentence first to the Court of Appeal, which also rejected the appeal, and finally to the Court of Cassation.
The drawings and images shown by the teacher
The teacher attempted to defend herself with various arguments in her appeal, claiming that she had not been adequately informed about the acts underlying the disciplinary dispute and questioning the validity of the evidence, which included statements from the children involved. Furthermore, she denied using vulgar or crude language with the children, saying she had drawn and shown images only of an egg, a sperm and a zygote, and not of genital organs such as penises or vaginas. Nothing the teacher can do: despite the justifications, the Court of Cassation confirmed the correctness of the previous sentences. According to the judges, the evidence presented – i.e. the minutes of the conversation between the principal and the parents’ representative, the minutes of the meeting between the principal and a colleague of the teacher involved, the minutes of the conversation between the principal and the substitute – were sufficient to consider the teacher’s behavior completely “inappropriate”, even after taking into consideration the hypothesis that the students could have “exaggerated” what happened.
The judges’ motivations
The reason? The teacher, the judges wrote in the sentence, «in class addressed topics related to sexuality and procreation without any planning or coordination with other colleagues and in an unsuitable context, i.e. immediately after a quarrel between two children. All of this – they continue – has the effect of causing serious disturbance and discomfort in the pupils, as noted both by the parents when they left school and by another teacher, called by the same children shortly after the incident.” Hence the Supreme Court’s decision to declare the teacher’s appeal “inadmissible” and to condemn her to pay 4 thousand euros in legal costs. Therefore, the teacher from Cesena – according to Italian justice – was fired.
