A Thousand Leva Dignity
A
By Yuliana METODIEVA 1 OBEKTIV
survey was carried out in the US on the relation between breakfast and attention to one’s studies. All findings confirmed, of course, that children from poorer areas do not study because they are hungry. It is obvious that there are more and deeper reasons behind their unwillingness to study, and that we cannot be 100 per cent sure that a muffin will help. One thing, however, is for sure, American sociologists in education claim, and that is even a class of hungry genii would also be incapable of studying normally. The example with the American children could, as an absolute value, apply to the hungry Roma children in Bukovlak, Fakulteta, or Meden Rudnik. The Social Minister cut their muffin and warm milk programme, and then introduced fines for unexcused absences. Fifty leva if you have been absent 5 times for no excusable reason. Clear and fair. Mrs Maslarova does not want to know of the absurd study conditions in the ghetto schools. Teachers there are sometimes more illiterate than the parents. Some I know personally myself. There was a mother in Montana who had brought up her children to play Stravinsky and study English. Not only did their teacher not know English but she also had problems with Bulgarian. Had it not been for the “desegregators” from Montana who placed the smart Roma children in an integrated school environment, their violins would have long been silent. By the way, the Ministry of Education, in the form of Daniel Valchev, pretends to have nothing to do with the desegregation of Bulgarian education. And so the fate of hundreds of thousands of Roma children remains at the hands of one millionaire, George Soros, though a document adopted in 2002 under the grand title “Roma Inclusion Decade”. Teachers are out on strike because they lack the confidence to teach in return for 300 leva. Yes, even when at the English language school and not necessarily the ghetto some of them do not know Bulgarian well. They still keep their regional accents and use obsolete clichés to express their emotions. It is also true, however that ALL governments from 1990 until the coalition of 2005 have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the Bulgarian education system. Pointless talks are still being held over the chicken and egg dilemma. Whether they should increase pay and expect the quality of education to improve, or ask dear teachers to first improve the quality of teaching to have their salaries increased. The urchin reactions to a bunch of sociologists and anthropologists in the tabloids and on TV programmes in the what-a-neighbourhood-brawl vein come as a knife in an already crazy mess of political sterility and theoretical ignorance on the part of educators, ministers, and ministers’ bosses. Actually, Minister Valchev’s boss, though educated in a prestigious British university, seems to have failed to acquire any of the British elegancy of expression. Mr. Stanishev messed up the prime minister register with that of the rock star, using on national air the word “dude”, which, of course, is far from being our greatest concern, but still. The appalling thing about the whole teachers-on-strike thing and the 2007 school year is that the word dignity suffered a fiasco, underwent a total inflation, and evolved; it was ecobulpacked for recycling. Instead of kneeling before it and treasuring it as part of the gold fund of words that all Bulgarian, Roma or Turkish children should know, teachers and MPs have deleted it. Forever! Instead of providing adequate pay, these pseudoelite of the nation brew intrigues, disunite teachers, and carry out separatist negotiations with their leaders, drafting lists of strikers.