A playwright friend who teaches courses at a private arts college recounted at a recent dinner how stressful the days leading up to the start of the academic year were. He didn’t mean the arduous task of preparing his subject or the bureaucratic hassle that each new cycle brings with it. He spoke exclusively about the new training that his center has decided on, which requires teachers to train them in the obligatory way in which they should deal with students. The “training” is carried out by a psychologist who is part of the teaching staff but also represents the students (in workers’ jargon, they would be called scabs). Pedagogical techniques were neither mentioned nor discussed in the course Practice. The central question was how to prevent students from feeling insulted. To achieve this, the Professor must strictly adhere to a series of formulas and rules more complicated than Buckingham Palace protocol for a citizen.
For example, When the teacher comes into contact with a student for the first time, he must ask him which gender he would like to be treated as. from now on, but it should be done in such a way that the question itself does not cause discomfort. The fact that Macarena wants to be Manolo should not cause a grimace or a sigh; otherwise, there is a risk of excommunication. In addition, classes must always take place with the door open, eye contact must be limited as much as possible, and interactions outside the classroom.
All criticism must be constructive. We listeners of the story joke by asking ourselves whether, in keeping with this maxim, we might say, “What brilliant nonsense you said,” or whether your “trial signifies disastrous mediocrity.”
In the event of an emotional problem expressed by the student, the teacher must restrain himself and call a telephone number provided by the University in order to respond appropriately and professionally to such a situation. Any physical interaction between student and teacher must be explicitly consensual at all times. Therefore, the dance teacher who wishes to correct a position of the arms must ask permission and wait for the student’s positive response before adjusting the student’s shoulders.
With scenic mastery and dramatic talent, our friend, whom we’ll call Ernesto, turned dinner into an entertaining opera buffa. But already in the desserts, it slowly and imperceptibly but inexorably conquered all the guests. a contradictory, bitter aftertaste.
There were two concerns. The first is the fate of this generation of “bubble children”, unable to accept criticism, victims of identity politics, and the ubiquity of feelings. With what spirit will they create, transgress, disrupt, and make mistakes? We are talking, remember, about adults who want to be artists and who have felt, in some vague or imprecise way, the call of the Muses. How will they rise again when they are stained with the mud of artistic failure and the mud of sorrow? How are they supposed to conceive of the legitimate conflict between the parties, the driving force of dramatic art, if they avoid it in their golden years of training? I don’t know any poetic daughters of overprotection, subsidization, victimhood, or induced applause. In the area of PolisHow can they be citizens who advocate that the truth exists and that the law should be the same for everyone if they are treated with the relativism of always being right? A final perversity complicates the entire equation. As our friend told us, at the end of the course, students anonymously evaluate the teachers, and those teachers who fail cannot continue their teaching at the university. The logic of trading—the customer is always right—is brought into the classroom. How can they not be demagogic teachers when they have to teach tyrannical students?
The second concern was for ourselves—our fellow members in their fifties, years before us, years back. Some of us grew up in wild and violent worlds, others in more advanced societies, but all of us have a clear awareness that reality gets better every five years: less violence, authoritarianism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and sexism. However, it has been for some time Social unrest has not stopped increasing, creating a dissonance between reality and its perception, between facts and their history. And we don’t know how to get out of this trap. It already has hegemonic media coverage and generates financial impact with consequent interests to protect: jobs, professions, public offices, subsidies. Who would have told us that the age of Aquarius would be replaced by the age of the victim?
The pursuit of professional excellence and the defense of political equality remain our goals, but now they have a purpose Retroparecen un gesture taxation. What if the world in which we grew up, lived, suffered, fought, and enjoyed no longer exists and we refuse to see it? like dinosaurs in the minutes before the fatal meteorite impact? No. Illiberal setbacks, like this short course, are neither a natural calamity nor an unstoppable fate. We can and must fight them every day, in the face of every new and seemingly tiny attack. I refuse to believe that defending the inalienable rights of people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, tribe, language, or religion seems decadent.
