The professor in love could be the title of a romantic film and, in fact, digging into memory, the theme has been addressed several times by cinema, with more or less successful results. When, however, a similar story emerges not from fiction but from the reasons for a ruling from the Court of Appeal of Milan, some questions become inevitable. In fact, in that sentence we read that a high school teacher was acquitted of the charge of sexual abuse against a student with whom a relationship had been attempted, because “It was proven that he really fell in love.” That love has no age is a widespread cliché; that there can be a big age difference between two lovers is a fact that happens. The problem, however, becomes much more complex when the relationship involves a teacher and a teenage student. Because if it is true that the heart cannot be commanded, it is equally true that a relationship with one’s student makes duties, responsibilities and educational functions disappear which are an integral part of the teacher’s role.
Being a teacher means never forgetting that students entrusted by families go through an objectively delicate age, crucial for the development of personality and ways of relating to others. Faced with a sixteen-year-old, even if legally capable of self-determination in the sphere of sexuality, those who carry out an educational function should always keep in mind the need to maintain a clear separation between the professional sphere and the personal sphere, between ethics and sentimentor.
Massimo Recalcati, in his book Class time. For an erotics of teachingreflects precisely on this point: teaching implies a symbolic dimension, an emotional involvement, even an “eroticism” understood as the desire to transmit knowledge. But this dimension can never slip into the confusion of roles or the satisfaction of personal desire. The erotics of teaching lives on distance, not on its cancellation. When this distance fades and disappears, as in the case reported in the news, it is legitimate to ask whether the judges too did not allow themselves to be carried away by sentiment. The crime charged against the teacher was that of sexual abuse of a minor, an accusation which was not considered proven. The only irrefutable evidence was a kiss, photographed by a classmate, exchanged in the school bathrooms. For the Court of Appeal, that isolated fact was not sufficient to constitute the crime.
Yet an open question remains: beyond the criminal relevance, wouldn’t it have been appropriate to stigmatize that behavior more forcefully? A teacher is a public official and, whether in love or not, can never abuse his role. Because if it is true that sometimes being fascinating and then becoming fascinated can be irresistible, it is equally true that the educational function imposes a clear and insurmountable limit, to protect not only the students, but also the very meaning of teaching.
