Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1130632
24 OPINION maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 JUNE 2019 Raphael Vassallo Teachers can be life-savers, too BEFORE beginning what will no doubt be a difficult article to write…. let us clarify some of the misconceptions sur- rounding the Erin Tanti case. Erin Tanti was not a teacher. Nor was he a qualified LSE. As far as can be determined, he had no form of official warrant or licence to teach of any kind – not even a temporary one. The St Michael Foundation School later issued a statement insisting that he had been recruited as a supply teacher 'in terms of the law and normal procedure'. As far as I know, this is true. It has separately been con- firmed that several other un- licensed teachers – in various subjects – had been employed in a number of other schools, equally within the parameters of the law. At the time, there was a severe shortage of quali- fied teachers in a number of areas: drama being one of them. Shortly after Lisa Maria Zahra's death in 2014, the Education Ministry (or another relevant department; the pre- cise details escape me now) started offering a temporary teacher's warrant to graduates in pedagogy and drama. I may stand to be corrected on some of the details, but that is my understanding of the situation. Sadly, this also means that it had to take the murder of a 15-year-old girl to finally address a problem that should, by rights, have been foreseen earlier. Opening the floodgates to unlicensed teachers also means facilitating access by potential predators to young, vulnerable children. I know it's very easy for me to say this now, with the benefit of hindsight. All the same, however – and I stress that this is a very personal reaction, which I don't expect to be widely shared, right now – our collective failure to take such a basic precaution, might also mean that we just do not value the power and responsi- bility of teachers and educators enough. This brings me to the difficult part. I have some very limited experience in the classroom… and it was unlicensed and unwarranted, too. In an equally legal way: the only formal qualification needed to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL), back in the early 1990s, was an A-level in English. [Note: It has since changed. A lot.] Now, I'm going to break with tradition, and share two personal experiences of mine: both occurring within the space of a week or two, around the mid-1990s. The first was something that could have happened any- where, at any epoch in human history. We had a case where a 17-year-old boy was threaten- ing to commit suicide. I was one of his teachers; and a lot closer in age than any of the others (I couldn't have been more than 22 or 23). So I was asked to have a 'talk' with him. From the outset, it was clear – both to myself, as to the school administration – that the boy was not at any real risk of actually killing himself. It's an important detail, because otherwise they would certainly not have asked me. Then again, within five min- utes flat it was plain that there was no real need for profes- sional help. And I don't take any credit whatsoever for that; I hardly even had to do any talking at all. He just burst into tears, and out it all came tumbling, by itself, in between sobs. It's a story we've all heard a million times before: boy meets girl at a wine-and-pizza party at Aquacentre; boy almost pukes up on a combination of San Paolo (28c a carton, back then) and pure adrenaline, before finally plucking up the courage to approach girl with a pick-up line he probably got from a Duran Duran song (hopefully, not 'I'm hungry like the wolf'…); And you all know the rest: girl rejects boy's clumsy advances; boy feels confused, mortified, hurt, humiliated in front of his friends, etc., etc. [Important note: I must em- phasise that this is boy's side of the story. I'm pretty sure girl's version would be slightly different. Only fair to point that out.] In any case, by the end of it anyone would have seen he al- ready felt slightly liberated just by talking about it. We ended up just chatting, and that was it. I walked away with more than reasonable certainty that he would survive. But while that may come across as just a sugary-sweet bit of summer puppy-love story… 'happened so fast', and all that… I now look back on it as a preparation for what was to come a couple of weeks later. Case number 2 was, in a sense, the total reverse of 1. Girl wasn't overtly suicidal. Nor was she outwardly de- pressed (it turned out she was both, and nobody could see it). The way I remember it: girl was… difficult. She was one of my after- noon students, and a morn- ing teacher came to warn me about her before the first class. 'Watch out for that one. She's disruptive.' Never a truer word spoken. Her first words to me, after I introduced myself, were: 'You sound nervous.' Immediately, just like that, she had me on the defensive. Because she was right. It was a new class, I was still shy at the time… and she saw right through it in less than 10 seconds. Looking back, she was prob- ably one of the most perceptive and hyper-intelligent people I have ever met. There was something of a child prodigy in her. And – much as I hate to say it, now – to me, it initially appeared to be a form of evil genius. I soon discovered that she was exactly the same with every teacher – cutting, spite- ful, mocking, and deadly ac- curate in her every insinuation. I distinctly remember that she made at least one teacher dash out of the classroom in tears. Can't remember how it came about exactly, but once again I ended up being the one 'having the chat' with her. But it was a very different experience this time. It was almost like I started out trying to mediate between her and the school administration; and ended up trying (and failing) to mediate between her, and the Universe she had declared war on. Very bluntly – cynically, almost – she gave me her rea- sons for all this anger. Unfortunately, there is no PC way of saying this: she hated herself for being fat. Those were her own words: spoken almost as if to dare me to deny it. And I didn't. I wouldn't dare: she'd see through the lie in an instant, and it would make matters worse. I'd Annual Orchestral Charity Concert featuring the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor Prof. Michael Laus with the participation of the Goldberg Ensemble at St John's Co-Cathedral on ursday 20 th June 2019 at 19.30 hrs A reception will be held aerwards. Entrance to the Concert and Reception is strictly by invitation Invitation-voucher(s) available from MASMOM offices, Casa Lanfreducci Pjazza Jean de Valette, adjacent to Our Lady of Victory Church,Valletta Tel. no.: 2122 6919 / 2124 6406 info@orderofmalta-malta.org.mt Annual Orchestral Charity e Maltese Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation present their under the distinguished patronage of H.E. Dr George Vella President of Malta advertissement 2019 colour.indd 1 30/05/2019 12:29 Opening the f loodgates to unlicensed teachers also means facilitating access by potential predators to young, vulnerable children