Luca – we will call him that – is a baby six-year-old with dark, deep eyes. Seeing him play peacefully in the backyard, no one could ever imagine the fragility that pervades his world where, at times, not even mum and dad are able to enter. Luca is a strong child but like many children he is affected by the spectrum disorder autistic, a pathology that cannot be seen but which also exists and covers with shadows all those areas of childhood which, on the contrary, should be radiated by a constant light. For his disturbance, Luca, so small, was laughed at, offended and treated as if he were a “greaser”. And not from any strangers, always insensitive to the appeal of everyday life but from his own teachersas the mother denounces, who made him the object of derision in a group chat.
Rome, the autistic child mocked by the teachers
It is a terrible story – if it were true – for the human implications that it carries with it and for the protagonists involved: the teachers, those figures who, like parents, should protect children. We are in Rome, in a district to the east of the city, where many young couples have decided to start a family. Luca and his parents fall ill with Covid-19 at the end of January, the little one will not go to school for at least two weeks.
THE MESSAGES
And it is at that juncture that an unbearable wickedness would have revealed itself. “Luke’s teachers – says the mother who asks for anonymity for her and for her son – two tenured teachers in a chat with the support teacher and the autonomy assistant start writing to find out how Luca is”. But theirs is not a compassionate concern. “They wished that his conditions were such as to avoid going back to school because so – continues the mother – they would have breathed and would have been better”. The lady, a young woman who, precisely because of her child’s pathology, diagnosed three years ago, stopped working to take care of him reads them: «One of the teachers asked“ Is he back to school? At least we prepare for the event “and the support teacher replied” They have had the swab but they are still positive, so the day starts well “with the faces laughing at the end». The chat, according to the lady, will include other such messages, we are in the middle of February: “Always one of the two permanent teachers – Luca’s mother goes on – says” I’m sorry for them, but we are told well ”and then in another conversation“ don’t wake the sleeping dog, let’s hope he continues to sleep ”». The little boy’s family heals and Luca also overcomes Covid by returning to class, he still attends the nursery school despite his age because “the doctors advised us to continue another year like this without enrolling him in elementary school”. They don’t know anything yet. “Then my son’s former assistant to autonomy – continues the lady – who had been assigned to another position informs me of these messages, lets me read them and at that point the world collapsed on me”. Because to the suffering of having to deal with autism is added that behavior that “hurts more than a knife in the back”.
THE SILENCE OF THE INSTITUTE
Luca’s mother shows up at school, asks for explanations but no one even gives her the vice-principal, according to the words of the woman who adds: “The support teacher denied everything, he didn’t want to talk and the police also arrived at school, I would have risked a complaint for violation of privacy because I was not part of that damn chat ». Since then no one seems to have contacted her. “The aspect that more than any other has hurt me is to discover that teachers, who deliberately choose to take care of the disabled, can go so far, to offend them, to mock them.”
OUTSIDE THE INSTITUTE
Little Luca since his parents discovered the chat no longer goes to school. “I demand justice in the face of such cruel behavior, these people must not go unpunished, they do not deserve to practice and we are not the ones who have to find another school” also because Luca, despite being autistic, is very attached to two classmates classy. The family found assistance in the association “The battle of Andrea” opened by two parents from Campania who years ago found themselves living in a similar situation: their son, autistic, banned from the Christmas play because it was considered “useless” by the teachers. “If all this were true, it would be a very serious thing – declares Asia Maraucci, president of” The battle of Andrea “- we are sure that the school will clarify the situation, and above all, we are sure that the competent bodies will do their duty to ensure that it emerges. the truth. On our part, and on the part of our lawyer Sergio Pisani, there is all the assistance to the family and especially to little Luca ». While the mother lets herself go to a last outburst: “My son could be everyone’s son”.
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