Student 3
On the 31st day of October, the Bruno High School was occupied by a group of protesters, who were against the Gelmini law, enforced two days before in spite of a lot of demonstrations and strikes.
Some students broke into the school early in the morning and locked all the doors with chains, chairs and tables
They also hung some banners from the front window of the institute, with slogans announcing: “Bruno Occupato” and “insults” towards Miss Gelmini.
Their aim was to obtain the abrogation or amendment of her law by not allowing other students into the school.
However, even if they didn’t join the occupation, a lot of them took part in another demonstrations organized by all the high schools of Mestre, carrying other banners with them.
The protesters stayed inside the school and held it for four hours
After those few hours, they allowed the teachers to get into the institute to discuss the situation, but I think with no effective results.
So, everybody including the teachers, decided to continue to join demonstrations and protests the following week, but not with other attempts of occupation again, because some of them thought it was useless.
I truly hope these events will help change this bad situation.
Student 4
On Friday, October 31st, I went to school to take part in the school’s occupation, to protest against the Gelmini bill, which became a law on Wednesday. The new school policies will cut down school fundings, making Italy educational system far less productive than before. We locked the doors, and occupied the school for about 3 hours: then, we let a few teachers come in, to discuss the matter: when the occupation was over an assembly started. At that moment, I went back home.
Student 5
On Friday 31st October,the day after the Gelmini bill was enforced, I saw a lot of people outside of the school. When I looked at the school there was a banner announcing “Bruno Occupato”. So I started looking for my classmates,when I found them they told me that some students had occupied the school to protest against the Gelmini law. I agree with a peaceful protest but in my opinion a school occupation isn’t the right thing to do.
Then I came back home because I was really wet; at 2 o’ clock I saw the news, there was a coverage about our school,they said that the people who occupied were a very small part of the students (about 40 people) who, after the occupation, had an assembly. Unfortunately I was home.
Student 6
On Thursday 30th October 2008 the Gelmini bill was passed with 164 votes in favour but there were abstainers.
The following day in a lot of Italian schools sit ins and school occupations took place. Students held marches and demonstrations in the streets; also teachers went on strike.
Our school was occupied by a few of students and out of a window was hanging a banner with the slogan “ Bruno occupato, l’onda anomala travolge anche il Bruno” (or something like this).
So teachers couldn’t enter the school and students couldn’t attend classes that day. I came back home and I watched media coverage about the Italian students’ protests against the Gelmini and Tremonti laws. Then a friend of mine, who took part in the occupation of the school, told me in the afternoon that she, with a few students ( I don’t know how many), entered the school premises at 6.50 in the morning and with chains locked all the school doors. After that neither students, nor teachers were allowed to enter: those who wanted to take part in the protest were asked to stay, while those who weren’t interested could leave. Fortunately there weren’t any damages and all the students were out of school before 12 a.m.
Student 7
Last Friday I arrived at school at eight o’clock AM as usual, but the school was closed because an occupation was going on. I thought that I couldn’t go inside but one friend of mine said that we could enter but no lessons were to take place. So I entered the school through a window, because the doors were locked, and I joined the occupation with my schoolmates.
Inside the school there were a lot of students who were protesting against the so called “Gelmini Law”, showing big banners and shouting slogans. Mariastella Gelmini is the Education Minister of the Italian Government. She proposed a reform that, among other things, means relevant cuts in state school funding; so, we protested to try to stop or to modify the reform.
We had a meeting with of all the other students and we talked about the school, the reform and what we could do that morning. At the end the decision was to stay at school until 2 o’clock PM.
The situation was under control but suddenly some students from other schools came inside the “Bruno”, they broke a door and some work instruments and they had other dangerous behaviors. After that I decided to leave the school and to go home with some classmates.
From this episode I learned an important thing: to demonstrate for our ideasi n a civil way is right but some forms of protest, like occupying the school, can create dangerous situations that students might not be able to manage effectively, avoiding unpredictable and unnecessary violence like in our case.
Student 8
On Friday 31st of October there were a lot of demonstrations in many schools in Mestre and in all the other cities of Italy against Gelmini bill, which was passed last Thursday.
In our school, the “Giordano Bruno”, we started demonstrating last Wednesday, with a “sit in” in our backyard. On Thursday I didn’t go to school, I stayed home. On Friday the school was occupied, walls and windows were full of banners with slogans. I stayed inside the school until some people began doing bad things, breaking something; so more people left the school premises, because our idea of holding an assembly with our teachers wasn’t listened to. So I went back home.