San Anton School needs to respond to this, as does the Office of the Prime Minister
I am reliably informed that Joe Gauci, headmaster at San Anton School, was one of the few guests invited into the specially restricted VIP security area at the prime minister’s reception for Prince William.
The guests did not include our former heads of state or former prime ministers, but they included Mrs Muscat’s make-up artist, Mrs Muscat’s hairdresser, Mrs Muscat’s dietician, and Mrs Muscat’s heavily tattooed English hamalla friend who is giving her lessons in pronunciation (there you have your answer).
Now I find out that the VIP guests also included Mrs Muscat’s children’s headmaster.
Oh, indeed.
Is this why the Muscats are above the law and allowed to whip their children out of school whenever they please, in term-time, without getting rapped by the headmaster or being reported to the education authorities like everybody else?
Whenever the most famous twins in the Maltese islands are shoved into the limelight on a public occasion when they should be in school, by a mother who seems determined to give her children the opposite of a normal life (recipe for disaster, Mrs Muscat – others have been there before you), people ask why she is allowed to do it.
I think their headmaster, who is clearly being actively courted and flattered along with the rest of that crew (he must have felt SO special on that list with a make-up artist and a tattooed woman) needs to answer to that.
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Hamallagg sfrenat. Does the British High Commissioner have any thoughts on this? Keeping ex-Presidents and ex-PMs out for the sake of these people. Don’t anyone ever dare say the Nationalists were arrogant.
Just have a look at this.
http://maltarightnow.com/news/2014/10/26/storja-esklussiva-fil-mument-tizvela-traffikat-ta-persuni-asjatici-lejn-malta/
The footage on this evening’s Net news shocking, herded into coaches before dawn under strict surveillance, these slaves are then forced to work behind locked doors.
Clothes hanging to dry, dirty plates and mattresses indicate there may be those who eat and sleep on the premises.
Labour’s plan all along, Chinese owned factories, exporting their manpower and complimentary exploitation to Malta, just to stitch ‘made in EU’ onto the products.
Now we know what Sai Mizzi’s up to, the special envoy to China and Asia who was concerned with the delays in issuing Visas.
How would the headmaster or anyone for that matter know that he was one of the “chosen few”?
Knowing how Muscat works, one could easily conclude that no one was informed as to how the guests were “graded”. Eddie Fenech Adami thought he was invited as usual while Joe Gauci thought he was one of many.
No one except the Prime Minister has a lot to answer.
[Daphne – Not quite. Why would a school headmaster be invited to a reception like that in the first place? Were other school headmasters invited? No, because otherwise the entire Upper Barakka would have been filled with them. The Muscats don’t understand that state receptions are not their private parties, to which they invite their friends, relatives, retainers and their children’s teachers. Clearly, other people don’t understand this either.]
So if one receives an invitation to watch the Independence celebrations from the Upper Barracca and probably glance at Prince William one should refuse the invitation. Ħallina!
The Muscats don’t understand….yes.
[Daphne – Yes, of course the headmaster should refuse it. This was a personal invitation from the parent of two of his pupils to an out-of-the-ordinary event. Accepting it is not different to accepting a crate of champagne from another parent, or from the same one, or an invitation for a day out on a yacht from another parent.]
Only the host would know the amount of guests, so you wouldn’t know whether the invitation is a Marsovin San Paolo or a crate of Moët & Chandon Champagne.
Dr Joe Gauci probably thought he would be one of one thousand guests. I’m sure he felt embarrassed when he came to know that the real VVIPs were not treated like he was.
[Daphne – Whether he was one of a thousand guests or one of a hundred is beside the point. The invitation was made out in the names of the parents of his pupils and he would have known exactly why he was invited unless he thinks that this government has put all the headmasters and headmistresses in Malta on the guest list for state receptions as standard. He should not accept a crate of cheap wine either. He should accept nothing. Stop defending the indefensible.]
You forgot convicted criminals guest as well
It’s quite incredible that Ms Muscat hired someone who is helping her speak English. Her father was an English teacher who rather than teaching good English did his utmost to beat us with his pointer on our hands in the down and under style.
[Daphne – Min jaf kemm hu prawt issa. Ajma jahasra.]
As far as I know, Mrs Muscat has a degree in English. And she is still studying pronunciation?
[Daphne – Communications, I believe, not English.]
No idea what should and should not be done..their knowledge of protocol is zilch.
Neither Muscat nor her husband understand that theirs is arrogant and unacceptable behaviour, because they are far too ill-bred to have the required yardstick for measurement.
I know two families who are considering taking their children out of San Anton School because they cannot take any more blatant discriminatory behaviour by the school principals. The whole thing has become a standing joke amongst parents whilst they’re waiting to collect their children.
The problem of the school is the access or no access to the school. The Headmaster has no fault in this. I have two children in the school and i am extremely pleased with the school. Some parents think that because they pay for the education they have to get preferential treatment! The only thing they are entitled to is for their children to be given excellent education, thought manners and respect for one an other.
Re the road, the only way to solve the chaos is for a Government to expriorate a small section of the land adjacent to the side road leading to San Anton and San Andrea school and make it wider and also alfatar the road that leads downwards to Burmarrad for a secondary exit.
[Daphne – This is not a discussion about San Anton School. Please stick to the subject.]
@GeorgeN
I hear there was a brawl at the school gates, involving the woman who prefers to be known as “the prime minister’s wife” rather than as a person in her own right.
Do you have any details, photos or video footage?
Mhux hekk.. widening the road for a fee paying snob’s school … the school should never have been built there anyway. Issa kif jghidu: min jikriha, joqghod ghaliha.
[Daphne – Define ‘snob’. Would you consider the prime minister and Mrs Muscat to be ‘snobs’?]
There are snobs, and those aspiring to become snobs… including champagne “socialists”.
How could I make contact with you, Daphne?
[Daphne – Oh dear, you make me sound like a battery: [email protected]]
LOL – where do you come up with such ideas from? Couldn’t stop laughing.
For the Muscats everyone has a price. Some low, some high.
How could I contact you, Daphne?
[Daphne – [email protected]]
There is supposed to be a ‘Red book’ at the Office of the Prime Minister with a list of Malta’s prominent people and their respective place in seniority.
Indeed a recipe for disaster. I shudder to think how in eight years’ time, when they are 15 or so, they will expect everyone to bow and scrape before them.
Paris Hilton comes to mind.
Hbieb tal-hbieb
Update:
Hbieb tal-Hamalli
Hamalli hbieb.
The twins are arrogant and insufferable now let alone when they become teenagers. Oh what hell they are going to inflict upon you, Mrs Muscat, once they hit the rebellion years and are simultaneously deprived of the castles and palaces and jet-setting life they believe is their natural birthright, not a temporary blip after a general election. All that you sow will be reaped.
Surely, this must be the Mother of All Attakki Fahxija.
As an ex-student and more importantly a parent of a child at this school, I find this utterly disgusting and some explanations should be made.
Nice way to keep the headmaster happy. Totally disgusted.
Who is the tattooed lady please?
[Daphne – An English hamalla who lives in Malta and who wrote something or other that Mrs Muscat admires (she would, I suppose). She was interviewed by one of the newspapers here – big thuggy Manchester type with rough-cut short hair dyed blonde. I don’t know her name, but I’m quite sure some reader does.]
Oi, ‘ere:
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/first-lady.jpg
Not sure what the fuss is all about really. Nothing illegal here. Why all the fuss?
[Daphne – Adultery is not illegal either, Paul, but I am quite sure we both agree that making a fuss about it is perfectly justifiable. And abortion is legal practically everywhere in the world, but still you make a fuss about it.]
Daphne, careful that you don’t blow a gasket. Much a do about nothing here. I just think that you could spend your time writing about something, well, a little more newsworthy maybe?
[Daphne – You are clearly unaccustomed to my conversational style, Paul. Those who have directly experienced my blowing a gasket will know that this is just me joking around.]
This is Daphne’s blog and even if some might not agree with her political views, she is awesome!
Her articles are written to allow us to have a different perspective of the news which the general media tries to deliver to the public. Well, and to make us smile!
Lighten up, Paul. Just cast your mind back to when we used to run around in your Buggy. You used to be fun then, and certainly never came across as some angry fella nursing a chip on your shoulder.
:)
Much ado about nothing? Had something like this happened in another country the journalists would have shred both the Prime Minister and the headmaster to bits by now.
Int sew jew?
Paul, if you don’t send your children to school, you know what the consequences would be. But then, the prime minister and his wife are allowed not to send their children to school so that they can travel with their parents on official engagements where they have no place being to begin with.
It’s about time we started being specific when talking about twins. Fraternal “twins” are just siblings with the same birthday – not really “twins” at all.
Biologically, they belong to the 99.4% of the people who make up this planet’s population: singles. Only identical twins are natural-born clones.
[Daphne – Well, I could have simply said Soleil and Etoile, but then Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who loves children so much that he goes through life scattering them like skittles, would have charged to Facebook, whisky bottle in hand, to denounce me to his subliterate fans as an attacker of innocent children. You know, a sort of Bluebeard of Muscat progeny.]
What has that got to do with anything anyway, Chris?
Gross error of judgement … Dr. Joe should have known better.
I don’t think so, Harry. What has this affair got to do with this person or the school he works for? I am certain there were many other guests there. It’s not like going is morally wrong or something.
[Daphne – I don’t think you understand, Paul. This is not the reception we are talking about here: you are right about there being nothing untoward about being invited to the reception for Prince William and accepting that invitation. This is the special security area we are discussing, to which a small number of guests from the general reception were invited. They included all of Mrs Muscat’s retainers and her children’s headmaster. I trust you now understand the context.]
What is the relevance of this article and if you are “reliably informed ” why don’t you ask your papaarazzi to send you a pic?
[Daphne – If you need to have the relevance explained to you, you are in the wrong portal.]
I guess this reply shows that you have run out of bullets …. i think the explanation is not due by San Anton School or Mr. Gauci but by the Government …. that’s all !
[Daphne – Bullets, good grief. An explanation is, of course, due from the headmaster and he would be wise to give one. I am quite sure the other parents at his school, who all pay the same fees (we hope, at least, that the Muscats are paying fees) would like to know why they can’t whip their children away from the island whenever they want to do so in term-time, when he appears to have no such objection to the Muscats doing just that, and then accepts an invitation from them to join her make-up artist and hairdresser at a party for Prince William.]
I agree with Chris B here. Dragging a head teacher into this is just ridiculous. The school has nothing to do with this affair.They have nothing to act on.
[Daphne – Oh do stop, Paul. If you’re a friend of his, just come out and say it. ‘Dragging a head teacher into this is just ridiculous’. I agree and that is just my point: why did Mrs Muscat drag him into it? Except that I would have said headmaster not head teacher, of course. When my sons were at that school, the headmaster was most certainly the headmaster and not the head teacher. How times must have changed in all the wrong ways.]
It is not only parents of children at this school who are owed an explanation but other parents of children at all schools.
When I asked for permission to take my child out of school a week early at the end of the last term, because my parent needed to see an oncologist in the UK urgently, I was told that if I did so I would be reported to the education department – even though I had a letter from a medical consultant and proof of the appointment.
This when my child was a straight A student who had only been sick for two days in that whole year.
If there are regulations they are not solely for San Anton School, so it is all parents and society who are owed an explanation.
Daphne, I understand what you are trying to say and the point you are trying to make. I just don’t agree with dragging people into the discussion insinuating that they are somehow colluding with the PM.
You sometimes forget that people have emotions and that you can really damage others with your methods.
The means does not always justify the end you aim to achieve.
[Daphne – If people cannot deal with their emotions like grown-ups, Paul, they should not be in public life or headmasters of a large fee-paying school which is now in the limelight thanks to one extremely flashy parent. I have emotions too. People violate those emotions on a daily basis. I understand that it comes with the territory, and I deal with it. Maltese men have a really serious problem, and it’s about time this problem was faced because it really isn’t normal for grown men to react this way, with talk of emotions and being wounded and all that crap, when somebody criticises them justifiably. Grow up. Bunch of wusses who would all have been shot for cowardice in World War I. But it’s not mere cowardice, is it? The inability to handle criticism is a psychological problem: you should know, as you train people for a living.]
come on Paul its headmaster not head teacher … or alternatively “teacher of the head” ….. like when we have no relevant reply and we try to teach English instead…. hint hint
[Daphne – I assure you that you are doing the headmaster no favours. And yes, he is a headmaster and not a head teacher.]
Daphne, it is you who dragged Dr Gauci into the public sphere. He is a private person not a public servant.
Being head master of a school does not make him public.
[Daphne – Once more you have missed the point. The subject here is not your headmaster but the prime minister’s wife. I can’t write a story about the prime minister’s wife inviting her daughters’ headmaster to meet Prince William without mentioning the headmaster. The public interest lies in the actions of the prime minister’s wife. The headmaster is the board of governors’ business, not the public’s and most certainly not mine. However, I am not averse to advising him to be wary of overtures from that conniving woman. People like that operate solely in their own interest, so you must always ask what’s in it for them, not you.]
He works for a private institution not the state. You cast doubt upon him and then inform us that the school should do something about him. You vainly attempt to justify your mud slinging project.
You methods here are not right. It’s time you faced up to responsibility for your actions and admit that you are not God’s gift to opinions.
[Daphne – No, I’m not God’s gift to opinions, but I do have a few rather good ones and you must admit that people seem to enjoy them. Why, even you are here, chewing away. Look, Paul, I know enough about Maltese men of a certain type to work out that this is the point at which, when a woman is refusing to see the greater wisdom of their view, they devolve into rage and insults. I suggest you cut out before you lose control and that authoritarian tone segues naturally into what it tends to do in these situations: base insults and, in some men, the urge to grab the woman by the neck and shake her, failing which they will hit the nearest piece of furniture or wall instead.]
I don’t know if M was referring to a private school. I have the impression that private and church schools can do what they want.
My friend went on holiday to Australia for three months with her 10 year old daughter. The daughter’s teacher used to send her the homework everyday and believe it or not the next year, she was promoted without any problems. This happened in a Church school.
If you have people asking about the relevance, then maybe this is the wrong portal indeed!
Ridiculous!?
You must be kidding. You just have to ask why he was even on the general list for the reception in the first place, let alone invited into the special security area.
The only explanation is that he is Soleil’s & Etoile’s headmaster. If you can’t see the implications of that, you’ve got some serious issues.
And yes, the school has a lot of explaining to do.
Then why are you here?
Because sometime Daphne does indeed write relevantly. At times, I disagree, not rocket science Sandy. Just normal.
However how can a head master or school explain what is apparently a government decision? Shoud the headmaster have refused to attend? Besides I see no connection with abortion in this matter.
[Daphne – I am controlling myself, David.]
Look David, when you’re dead, you’re dead. You don’t know you’re dead, you don’t feel you are dead, you don’t hear yourself dead. Only those around you know you are dead.
Just like being stupid.
Love your comment mf.
I bet the ‘kids’ get full marks though.
You see White coat, this is why pieces like these are so uncalled for. What you mistake for witty comment is damaging and dishonest. You cast doubt upon an entire school because of your disingenuous remarks.
[Daphne – Nobody is casting doubt on THE SCHOOL, Paul.]
But you are when you involve the school in the headline. You insinuate that the school should somehow take unknown action on a case that has nothing to do with the school.
Just in case you make other assumptions, I do not have any connection with this school as you suggested.
[Daphne – The board of governors should indeed take action, Paul. It should immediately instruct the headmaster not to accept significant gifts, privileges or invitations from ANY parent of children at the school, and to ensure that the name of the school is not brought into further disrepute by the behaviour of the prime minister’s wife and her antics with her children.
You can’t possibly have any idea of the amount of talk there is. None of that talk is good for the school. It is symptomatic of Mrs Muscat’s vulgarity that she is unable to assimilate as just another parent, and her children as just a couple of other pupils, and that everybody must know about her children, herself and where her children are at school. Did we know where other prime ministers’ children were at school, including Sant’s? No. Not unless we knew them personally.
When my children were at San Anton School 20 years ago, parents’ day and school concerts were like a convention of Malta’s movers and shakers, for want of a better description. But nobody ever threw his or her weight around, nobody sought special advantage, and nobody courted the headmaster. That was because we all came up through a formal private school system ourselves and innately understood the boundaries, the headmaster’s place in the scheme of things, our children’s and our own.
It is quite obvious that when Mrs Muscat parades her children around on official trips during term-time, other parents will be watching the news and wondering why she is not given hell in the same way they are. San Anton School was not set up to be dominated by the values of crass and vulgar arrivistes, whatever their position. If anything, its ethos was to give the children of such people values and standards of behaviour that they wouldn’t learn at home. It didn’t always work but this sort of behaviour and flash-trash showing off and seeking of special treatment would never have been tolerated.]
Maybe your error emanates from the fact that you are comparing how the school was 20 years ago and how it is today.
Does this give away your intentions here? Is your problem a personal one with Dr Gauci?
You cannot argue everything away so easily. First you say we are not debating the school, then you criticise the school. What is it? Make up your mind!
[Daphne – Why should I have a personal problem with today’s headmaster? I don’t know him from Adam. The school has had several headmasters and my youngest son left in May 2004. I think it’s more a matter of you explaining what your special interest is here. Are you another parent of one of his pupils? Then if so, I would desist for the exact same reasons that Mrs Muscat should not have invited him to that party.]
If you say so Daphne. Then it must be so!
Jahasra forsi talbu lill-headmaster biex idoqq ghax hu l-pjanist tal-grupp Salt.
No wonder she is the only mother who is allowed to go into the school when dropping off her twins in the morning.
Our descent into third world status confirmed.
Dictator to tyrant phase.
Soft of course.
All done and dusted, instead of the resignation due.
The exquisite callousness to the repugnant method is that the poplu is oblivious to the shifts.
Is this invitation a form of bribe for the Muscat children to be more privileged?
Laghqi.
L’etat, c’est moi.
A government of social climbers, by social climbers, for social climbers shall not perish from Malta (any time soon)
You pay to send your children to a smart school and they end up having to deal with Soleil and Etoile while you deal with Mart Il-Prim Ministru, Michelle Muscat every morning at the gates and at every school event.
Well, I don’t know…
The legitimate questions that Daphne is making here are various.
Why is the Muscat twins’ headmaster, who is bound to observe the education laws on absenteesim from schools, invited to the secure VIP area area in such a high profile state function?
Why was he invited when ex prime ministers and ex heads of state were not? Or NGO leaders?
Has Mrs Muscat (Daphne is only questioning) compromised the headmaster? I really hope not as I truly believe that San Anton School is very organised, smart and one of the top schools in Malta.
I hate the way politics and politicians drag people into “compromising” situations for such “glittering moments”, perhaps for some paybacks and “favuri u pjaciri” which after all is paid not by the politicians but by the taxpayers’ money.
Dr Gauci’s dedication and professionalism in the overall administration of the school is unquestionably perfect and the track record speaks for itself.
I personally think that the problem lies not in inviting the headmaster but in privileging him over others in protocol terms – an attempt to flatter him with special attention that was most definitely not his choice.
In all likelihood, the headmaster was not aware of the protocols and if there is a problem, it is not with Gauci at all. It has to do with the office of the PM and how they selected the guests.
[Daphne – Protocol has nothing to do with it, Paul. The headmaster of a fee-paying school of that level should understand without needing to have it explained to him that when the parents of his pupils are seeking to curry his favour or suck up to him, it is because they wish to seek advantage and he should not respond or collude in obtaining advantage for himself even if he has no intention of giving any form of advantage in return. How is an invitation to this event, from the parent of a pupil (abusing of her position, to boot), any less incorrect than another parent sending the headmaster a large crate of champagne and his accepting it?]
I hate to interfere with you dragging the woman-hating Paul Vincenti over the coals, but what’s with the “abusing OF her position” as opposed to “abusing her position”? The majority of Maltese do this. Darling, if we can’t rely on you for utterly flawless grammar and syntax, then there is little hope for the primarily English-speaking Maltese fraternity.
[Daphne – ‘Of her position’ is correct, but the verb should more properly have been ‘abuse’ rather than ‘abusing’.]
Jackie, I feel that it is easy for people like you to make such statements in my regard only because it is convenient.
It would seem that by claiming I am a woman hater helps you as you then not have to debate the origins of your assumptions. That is, that I am against abortion. Instead of discussing why, you throw filth and make statements founded upon your poor imagination.
I find this tactic to be the final recourse of those who cannot debate.
Substantiate your claim if you can!
Love your comment mf.
It seems that you really have a problem. Is it possible that you just don’t get it?
Paul – You no doubt fail to see the extreme irony in asking me to substantiate my claims about you.
Your entire ethical outlook is based on unsubstantiated claims about the world. You believe that a fertilised ovum is the personal handiwork of the creator of the universe.
From this unsubstantiated starting point you have gone on to advocate that a 13-year Maltese rape victim should be denied access to the morning-after pill. Your stand-point on reproductive rights is deeply immoral.
Instead of fighting the disgraceful Maltese abortion laws, you (aided and abetted by lots of other middle-aged men) lead a blackmailing campaign to have them enshrined in our constitution.
What better example of classic misogyny could there possibly be?
You are of course entitled to believe in talking snakes, virgin births, walking on water and any other similarly bizarre stories. What you are NOT entitled to do is to take your unsubstantiated beliefs and use them to justify forcing restrictions on me regarding what I can and cannot do with my body.
I would have no problem giving serious consideration to an abortion if circumstances called for it. At the same time I would be more than happy to hold up my moral outlook against yours any day, so keep your rosaries out of my ovaries.
…. but I think Daphne here pretended Dr. Gauci to write back to the prime minister asking who was on the list in order to decide weather to attend or not, lest she would write about it in such a manner…. (between you and me) to increase the views and clicks on her portal and attract more advertising…..
[Daphne – I very much hope you were not educated at San Anton School if you believe the Maltese ‘tippretendi’ is the English ‘pretend’. The word you need there is ‘expected’. No, I expected no such thing. I expected the headmaster to receive the invitation and politely decline, pleading a prior commitment, having understood without needing to have it explained to him that it would not reflect well on the school, on himself personally and, for that matter, on the prominent parents who invited him, to be seen at that reception.
There is only one reason why he would have been invited. Well, two reasons, actually: Mrs Muscat needs special favours for the twins; the government owes San Anton School hundreds of thousands of euros as funding for learning support assistants and needs leeway on paying it.
If these basic things now have to be explained, then we may as well all slit our wrists and be done with it.]
Sorry for being not so perfect in English as much as you are in Maltese, nevertheless I remind you that even your tongue betrayed you and you tried speaking Maltese on the Malta National Tears River day on the eve of the last election when you cried so much so to flood Bidnija. good day
[Daphne – The Maltese I spoke that day was perfectly fluent. Never make the mistake of confusing fluency with an ‘accent tar-rahal’. I speak Maltese as a native, just not a native of Bormla.]
Probably those educated at San Anton School DO think that the equivalent of ‘to expect’ is ‘to pretend’.
[Daphne – I wouldn’t know about nowadays, but certainly not in the 14 years my sons were there. In any case, that sort of error comes from the home, not the school. The school can only correct it and hope the information gets through.]
Yes. Its home which either affirms or totally destroys what’s done at school. Whichever the school.
that should have been “it’s”
Sorry don’t want to be fussy but this rhyme I learned in primary school helped me get over the “to decide weather to attend or not” problem:
Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not
Whether the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not.
So Muscat’s stentorian declarations about what will happen to parents who take their children out of school during term time was just so much bullshit.
When my first started school at San Anton we were asked not to add any of the teachers to our Facebook friends. This, of course, is a completely understandable request.
So to see the headmaster socialising with the parents of other students like this is of course very surprising to me.
I have to say I am rather disappointed. I look forward to hearing from Dr. Gauci.
Ian, what a joke! It is the teachers who are constantly adding their students onto their ever-growing Facebook friends’ list. Even their school councellor, who should be best equipped to know that this is unacceptable behaviour, adds all the students to his list. This is an issue that the school has discussed but apparently, few teachers ever complied, with some saying that what they do in their private lives has nothing to do with the school.
The reasoning of people like Paul Vincenti encapsulates all that is wrong with Maltese democracy, and why it has not developed further than that of a 1950s Sicilian village.
Mark, you are of course entitled to your opinions, even if they are stunted by poor reasoning, injustice and served with a dosage of self indulgence.
I live in a world in which truth and fiction are separate affairs.
If I take a stand on an issue, I do so with full-hearten convictions. I lay it out there as I see for anyone to see. What’s more, I do it in my real name.
You sir or madam, on the other hand, remind me of what is so terribly wrong with anonymity when commenting online. It is the comfort zone of poor weak and terrified cowards.
I am not anxious to take lessons in democracy from a person who is so very consumed by envy and fear, that they feel compelled to hide behind a first name.
I do not know you because you hide in the shadows. You know me only because I fear lies and deceit.
[Daphne – Come on, Paul, let’s not be over-dramatic.]
Daphne, if you want to nip this sort of thing in the bud then gifts to teachers, seen as very normal in Malta, are on the same line.
Abroad this is seen as a first level of sucking up and not tolerated.
There is no way anyone in the class is going to want to be labelled a sucker, wuss, loser etc.
It’s a whole mentality of the obbligat, nservik, qaddej fidil variety, confirmed by the subservient nod of the head when meeting or departing company with others.
The headmaster should have known better but, quite evidently, his social coding did not find it alarming.
That is the loudest alarm to be sounded, and the very reason why there are two Maltas in conflict with one another.
That, is why it is worth making a fuss.
If you send your child to what is meant to be the Church replacement school and amongst the best in Malta, you pay for things like this – instinctive awareness of social coding, not for what you can get in a state school.
There is no sense of value.
San anton has a policy that parents should not befriend teachers on Facebook.
By the same token, the headmaster should not have accepted the invitation to the Independence Day party, or special access to the security area, as he was obviously invited only because he is the headmaster at Soleil and Etoile’s school.
He exercised very poor judgement in going. For this he should issue an apology to the Board of Governors.
We have come to expect bad social behaviour from the PM and his wife. They treat their position as if it is their natural birthright as opposed HE ALONE being the current ELECTED representative of the people, with all the obligations that comes with that.
Joseph and Michelle Muscat will not feel embarrassed by this as they do not have the social background to even realise that they have done anything wrong.
And if they do, then they don’t care, which is even worse.
Those around them need to be even more prudent otherwise they will set themselves up to being embarrassed by the actions of the PM and his wife, as I am sure Dr Gauci is feeling right now.