Peer
violence
Training path
Adolescence: age of changes
• Adolescence is the life period between childhood and adult age
• It is a developmental phase characterised by biological
maturations, physical changes and development of own sexual
identity
• Such developments influence adolescent’s relations with others
and with own self, modifying the representations that have regulated
own relations with the others
• Also requests addressed to adolescents change: others expect
more adult behaviours, not yet considering adolescents as
autonomous persons
• Self-definition process is characterised by tendencies to acting,
opposition, rebellion, self-tries through excesses. Such behaviours
are useful in the light of self-development.
• Adolescence is characterised by feelings of isolation, loneliness,
disorientation and uncertainness: who you are, what you want,
what you like, what you believe in and what your aim is, are not
often clear.
Social relations as critical
elements
•
•
•
Adolescent’s social relations are crucial for the
development of own personal identity
Meaningful persons are those influencing choices,
decisions and values (influence on socialisation), those
to which one is attached (affection) and those admired,
those one would be alike (identification images) [Blyth
1982]
Adolescent’s social relations could be explained by
three “sub-nets”:
1. Family
2. Other meaningful adults (teachers, coaches, neighbours)
3. Peer group
Family
• Adolescence represents the attempt to
accomplish the separation-individuation
process initiated during childhood
• During such separations, adolescents match
with own resources and abilities, search for
new referring persons and try to build
presupposes for self-organisation
• From relations with own family members
derive capabilities that will structure selfindividuation and identity later on
Educational styles
MAX
SUPPORTIVE
Few requests; strong and positive
emotional link
↓
-
impulsiveness
scarce autonomy
difficulty in taking on
responsibilities
PERMISSIVE-INEXSTENT
Few requests; few encouragement
and interest
↓
Support
MIN
-
absence of self control
high dysadaptation
INFLUENTIAL
Encouragement to autonomous
behaviors; limits and control
↓
-
DICTATORIAL
Limits, control, directives to be
followed
↓
-
Control
social competence
self-trust
sense of responsibility
tendency to compare own self to
others
low spontaneity
scarce relational abilities
MAX
Educational styles strongly influence the level of autonomy of an adolescent
Function of family
•
•
•
•
Parents’ emotional availability activates adolescent’s exploration
behavioural system
Family function is to provide a secure base from which it is possible to
explore own emotional moods
A missing development of fiduciary relationships with own family may
foster destructive and aggressive behaviours in adolescents
Relevant familiar aspects to enhance competence and trust are:
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
Encouragement to be autonomous and independent
Quantity and kind of conflicts among members
Strength of familiar links
Support given
Emancipation: transformation of familiar relations, making them become
more equal and reciprocal
Independence: affective freedom to build new relationships, and to take on
self-responsibility in different frameworks
Even if adolescents search for freedom inside and outside own families,
they need their families as a source of safety and help
School
• It represents a fundamental experience for adolescents
(a place to learn but also to live) enabling comparison,
development of new behavioural models and of new
interpersonal relationships
• It is a transitional area between family and society,
central for youths’ future
• Scholastic failure represents a predictor of adolescent
path in terms of personal diseases, behavioural
problems and participation in anti-social activities
• Scholastic failure is caused by a concurrence of many
factors: socio-cultural variables, individual and cognitive
characteristics, but also difficulties related to teaching
style
Teaching modalities
PERMISSIVE
↓
INFLUENTIAL
↓
disorganization
motivation
inefficiency efficiency
DICTATORIAL
↓
passivity
rebellion
A group works well when its members feel themselves
as responsible about it, and when they believe to be
able to develop a collective work
School function
• In a phase of separation from parents,
characterised by anxiety and sense of guilt, the
identification with a teacher or a support from
him/her may anticipate emancipator process
• School fosters the acquisition of cognitive tools
enabling a detachment from obviousness of
situations in which one lives
• Class group has a function of social modelling
for youths, easing autonomy processes and
personality development
Peer group
• During adolescence the peer group has an importance that it did
not have in the past and that it will not have in the future
• It provides a congenial and reassuring environment that fosters
separation from families, emancipation
• Group membership has a function of protective niche offering
narcissistic support, and favouring a game of mirror identifications
• Group approval is fundamental for self-redefinition process (“ideal
of I”), supporting youths in recognizing own experiences
• Groups have their own rules, a non-written code felt by their
members
• Group experiencing is important in everyday life, absorbing most of
own free time
Function of peer group
• It offers the opportunity to learn social abilities as:
–
–
–
–
Conversation abilities (making questions, debating constructively)
Assertive abilities (assert oneself)
Abilities in relations with persons of the opposite gender
Abilities in tackling own aggressive impulses
• It brings an autonomous symbolic status
A status based on own attainments, making adolescents feel equal to
others (symmetrical relations)
• It represents a social lab
A place to test behaviours without any control from adults
• It favours the development of a less rigid Super-I
Through comparison one learns to tolerate some personal aspects that
were not accepted before, but that others do accept, so to tolerate own
senses of guilt
1. Peer violence
Definition of the term,
motivations and typologies
Peer violence
Peer violence may take 3 different forms:
CRIMINAL
ACTIVITY
NORMAL
CONFLICTS
AMONG
TEENAGERS
BULLYING
Criminal activity
• It occurs to coincide with real crimes
commission :
–
–
–
–
–
–
Damaging
Beating
Lesions
Thefts
Molestations
Sexual abuse
• In these cases the role of an educator is to alert
an official, and to make magistracy intervene.
Dynamics of a normal conflict
among teenagers
• There is not any attitude of persistent will to
hurt someone
• Limits are not overcame with the scope to
impose own will
• In most cases conflicts are expressed through a
verbalization of individual reasons
• Conflicts are overcame through an identification
of possible solutions, coming to an agreement
and negotiating
Bullying
• It represents a form of oppression through which a victim is
subjected to a condition of humiliation and suffering
• It is a “systematic abuse of power” characterised by:
– Intentionality
Conscious will to perform physical and verbal acts aimed to damage and hurt
someone else
– Persistence
Interaction between the aggressor and the victim is characterised by
repetitiveness of overpowering behaviors lasting for quite some time
– Imbalance
Asymmetric relation in terms of strength and power played
• It is a very unpleasant kind of aggression, being directed towards
vulnerable individuals that are usually unable to defend themselves
Kinds of bullying
• Direct bullying: behaviours that make use of physical strength to
damage someone else
– hitting, shoving, etc.
• Verbal bullying: behaviours that make use of words to damage a
victim
– Insistent and reiterate sneering;
• Indirect bullying: behaviours not directly addressed to a victim, but
that damage him/her in his/her social relations
– Such behaviours are often not visible, leading to victim
exclusion/isolation through a diffusion of gossip and rumour, ostracism
and refusal to accomplish his/her requests
Functions of bullying
Bullying may be oriented to social inclusion or exclusion:
– Inclusion function
• Initiation rites directed towards newly arrived persons (“baptism”)
• Exchange of “attentions” between bully and provoker victim
– Exclusion function
• Expressive: scapegoat mechanism (interaction between perpetrator
and passive victim, perceived as weaker and different from others)
• Utilitarian: recurrent thefts, extortions, blackmails on homework to
copy
Bullying as a kind of
aggressiveness
• It is a sub-category
of aggressiveness
characterised by
repetitiveness and
power imbalance
among partners
• It is a pro-active kind
of aggressiveness (not
reactive): a behavior
directed towards
precise scopes,
especially of
dominance and
creation of
interpersonal status
Indirect
aggressivenes
s
-Induce schoolfellows to avoid
possible victims
-Shed gossip or interrupt contacts
with victims
Social
aggressivenes
s
-Damage self-estimation or social
status of someone else
-Direct forms: verbal refusal,
negative facial expressions,
avoidance strategies
-Indirect forms: calumnies or
exclusion of someone
Relational
aggressivenes
s
-Exclusion from plays
-Force a victim to obey in order to
make friends with the group
-Make gossip on weaker
schoolfellows
Such forms are often overlapped.
2. Characteristics of the
phenomenon
Size, places, gender differences,
victim and perpetrator
characteristics – diagnosis of the
phenomenon
Bullying diffusion in Italy
• In Italy bullying phenomenon is pretty
evident, if compared with European and
extra-European countries statistics
– 45.9% of pupils attending elementary schools,
and 29.6% from Italian middle schools declare
to have undergone bullying
– The percentage of those declaring to perform
bullying is lower, but it is very consistent too
(22.8% for elementary and 13.8% for middle
schools )
Bullying contexts
• It may occur in any group made of aggressive persons, with an high
need to dominate others, and insecure, weak persons, afraid of
being aggressive or assertive
• It occurs within permanent peer groups, where membership is
not voluntary (school or work)
• It occurs especially at school, within less controlled places: school
gardens, dressing rooms, toilets, but also public means of transport
and school exit. It happens also within bunches of teenagers that
take around a quarter searching for a victim
• 41.3% of pupils declares that bullying happens within school
garden, a place where non structured situations take place, where
the youngest come into conflict because of the use of spaces to play
in, while the eldest because of the play itself and the way to put it
into action
Italian ways of performing
bullying
•
•
•
•
•
Insults or menaces
Shoves, hurts to make someone fall down
Unpleasant nicknames, mocking
Diffusion of malicious gossip
Offences related to:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Gender
Religion
Language or dialect
Way of dressing
Weight
Skin, hair, eyes colour
School performances
Way of expressing
Difficulties in speaking or moving/walking
Laughs or noises while someone speaks
Use of a code of speaking when someone is present
Offensive sms, emails or calls
Ignore someone
Force someone to do not desired things
Hide books or personal objects belonging to someone else
Take photos in secret and put them on Internet or show them to the others
Gender differences
• Usually males put in action a more physical
aggressiveness (directly targeting their
scopes);
• while females a more indirect and relational
aggressiveness (preventing the setting up of
close and friendly relationships, values that are
mostly believed by females)
Protagonists of the
phenomenon
BULLY
VICTIM
OTHER ACTORS
Bully
Fellow
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
▪
▪
•
Belonging family
High self estimate
Favourable attitude towards violence
Impulsiveness
Strong need to dominate others
Few empathy towards victims
Considers aggressiveness as positive, because
it helps to obtain whatever you desire
Willing to justify own behaviours
Aggressive towards both schoolfellows and
adults
Socially competent individual, using own
abilities for instrumental and Machiavellian aims
Birth of a brother/sister
Divorce
Separation from a parent
•
•
•
•
•
Hostile climate
Parents’ low acceptation of
own son
Authoritarian and violent
educational models
Excessively permissive,
inability to fix a limit to
youngster’s conduct
Incoherent educational style,
making the youngster unable
to foresee own parents’
reactions (considering
innocent gestures as offences
worth punishing)
Risk factors
▪ Transfer to another school/city
▪ Death of a dear person
Victim
Fellow
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Belonging family
Anxious, insecure and fragile individual
Low self estimate
Negative opinion about own self and own competencies
Lives a condition of isolation and social exclusion
Difficulties in recognising own emotions
Tends to accept own fate negating any problem or
putting in action self-accusation
Passive victims
Not inclined to provoke others, to protest
verbally or to begin fights
Negative attitude towards violence
When provoked, they react crying or closing
or withdrawing into own self
Difficulties to impose oneself within peer
groups
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Really cohesive and
protective families
Strong dependence
among family
members, making
relationships with
others difficult to
manage
Provoking and aggressive victims
Even if they undergo bullying, they
put in action reactive and aggressive
reactions
Emotive, moody characters, with
difficulties in controlling own
emotions
Agitated behavior
Possible cognitive difficulties
Provoking modalities
Other participants
•
•
•
85% of bullying episodes
occurs in the presence of
other participants
The roles of bull, helper
and supporter are
strongly correlated, and
may mutually interchange
accordingly to specific
situations
Children playing similar
roles in bullying
situations, tend to set up
social networks and
friendship relations
among them
Pro bullies
Helper: who acts bossily but
with a minor position within the
group, as a “follower” of the bully
Supporter: who acts reinforcing
bully’s behavior, as for instance
laughing, inciting him or simply
observing
Pro victims
Defender: who defends a victim,
consoling him or trying to
interrupt bullying
Observers
Outsider: who does not do
anything, trying to keep outside
from bullying situations
3. Indicators
Visible and invisible symptoms
of the presence of the
phenomenon
What are the premonitory
signals?
• Bullying may be very difficult to identify
• Victims may already have problems in rubbing
along with other pupils or teachers, so they are
often picked on because of that
• Bullying acts often occur far from teachers or
other adults view
• Usually only the other members of a class
know what is happening
• Peer violence is a phenomenon that tends to be
hidden from view: 50% of youngsters declares
not to tell anything to teachers nor to parents
Silence of victims
•
•
Often bullying victims tend not to speak about aggressions
Why are they still?
–
–
–
–
–
–
•
•
They are not conscious to be bullying victims
They fear a revenge from aggressors
They believe as wrong to “spy” about other schoolfellows
They fear to be derided if they tell something
They do not trust the help that may come
They choose to get themselves out of trouble alone
Especially males are reluctant to share their own feelings with
others, even if the others are coetaneous
If they speak to someone, they probably speak with their parents
– usually mom – or with their schoolfellows, before involving a
teacher
Indicators of abusing behaviours
(at school)
• Dan Olweus (1996) identified some behavioral indicators that,
within a scholastic context, indicate a need to broaden a situation
• Such indicators are not to be considered as univocal spies of
bullying, but they should stimulate in adults a stronger educational
care
• The primary indicators represent more marked risk indexes for the
condition of victim
• The presence of two or more primary indicators with an high
frequency indicate a very risky bullying situation
• The presence of only one primary indicator or of exclusively
secondary indicators with a low frequency, indicate a possible risk of
occasional victimization
Indicators - Victim
Primary indicators
• Being heavily ragged and/or ridiculed by schoolfellows
• Being intimidated, menaced or humiliated
• Being beaten, shoved, physically attacked without being able to defend oneself
• Being involved in quarrels and conflicts without being able to defend oneself adequately
• Personal objects have been damaged, robbed, hidden
• Presenting livid, scratches, damaged clothes without being able to explain how they were
produced
Secondary indicators
• Staying alone or being isolated by schoolfellows during free interaction moments among
peers (break, table…)
• Being lastly selected within team plays
• Avoiding any interaction with schoolfellows during free interaction moments among peers
(break, table…) and remaining nearby an adult (teacher, caretaker…)
• Being depressed, in low spirit
• Whimpering
• Being anxious, insecure (e.g. public speaking – in a class – is perceived as difficult)
• Scholastic performances becoming lower, suddenly or gradually
Indicators - Bully
• To rag heavily schoolfellows and/or to ridicule them
• To intimidate, menace one or more schoolfellows
• To humiliate and/or rule with a rod of iron one or more
schoolfellows
• To beat, shove, physically attack schoolfellows, not for play
• To be involved in quarrels and conflicts
• To damage, rob, hide other students' personal objects
• To be angry with one or more weak or undefended schoolfellows
• To isolate one or more schoolfellows during free interaction
moments among peers (break, table…)
• To diffuse gossip about one or more schoolfellows
• To provoke or roundly set against teachers
Indicators of abusing behaviors di
(at home)
•
Bullying victims hardly speak to adults about what is happening. Parents
must learn to catch signals that children may provide or hide. Some signals
of bullying victims are:
– To come back from school with ragged or crumpled clothes or with rotten books
– To present livid, wounds and scratches without any clear explanation
– Not to put up schoolfellows or coetaneous and to rarely spend own free time with
them
– Not to have any friend to spend own free time with (playing, making shopping,
attending sport or music events, making phone conversations)
– To be rarely invited to parties, and not to be interested in organising them,
believing that any schoolfellow will be glad to participate in
– To seem timorous and reluctant to go to school in the morning, presenting a loss
of appetite, frequent headaches or stomach-aches (especially in the morning)
– To prefer longer and more tortuous ways for going to school and coming back
home
– To sleep badly and having bad dreams
– Not to be interested in scholastic activities and obtaining low marks
– To seem unhappy, sad, depressed, moody, or to become unexpectedly irritated
– To ask for or to rob money at home in order to satisfy bullies requests
– To refuse to speak about what happens at school
4. Roles and responsibilities
School and family for
prevention and combating of
peer violence phenomenon
Whose fault is it, who pays
for? (Italian context)
• Full grown bully
• He/she has the full responsibility
• Underage bully
• Guilt belongs to the bully, the teachers (that must keep watch
youngsters), the school managers (they must control that
supervision do exist) and the parents (that must educate the
youngster)
• Guilt of underage bully
• The art. 2046 c.c. states that those who perform a damaging action
are responsible about it only accordingly to the level in which they
are able to understand the importance and the meaning of own
behaviour, provided that the state of inability does not depend on
them.
• Also a minor, if believed as able to understand, is responsible of
bullying acts, together with their own parents and the school.
Guilt of underage bully
•
•
It often happens that bullying is performed by an underage bully, so adults that take
care of a bully are responsible for him.
Technically we speak about:
–
–
–
culpa in educando for parents’ guilt;
culpa in vigilando and also in educando for teachers’ guilt;
culpa in organizzando when a school does not enable a monitoring and control over students’
behaviours (as for instance foreseeing ad hoc meeting rooms).
Culpa in educando of parents
•
•
•
Culpa in vigilando of school
(but also in educando and organizzando)
Parents are not ruled out from
•
A student, through the subscription to a
responsibilities related to their
school acquires the right to receive an
children’s behaviours
adequate and serene education, the
The art. 2048, 1° clause, states:
school has the duty to guarantee it and
“parents are responsible for
to prevent all illicit acts.
illicit behaviours of their
•
Teachers can be considered
underage children or of persons
responsible, but there will be the school
in tutelage, living together with
to pay for damages.
them”.
•
A student (and parents as holders of
The entrustment to other
subjective right to educate own children)
persons releases the parent
have the right to scholastic service
from a presumption of culpa in
inside of the right-duty for education.
vigilando, ensured in the school, •
So it is a school to have to compensate
so also outside of the
for damages caused by a teacher
classroom.
during the practice of his/her profession
inside of a school and during his/her
working hours.
Culpa in organizzando of
school
•
•
•
The supervision should be
guaranteed inside of school
and also outside of
classrooms.
It should be the
management of the school
to ensure that the students
are adequately followed for
all the time in which they are
inside of the school.
The school organization
which does not prevent acts
of bullying, for example with
establishment of
consultancy offices, can be
considered as guilty in culpa
in organizzando.
Result of the process
•
•
•
•
•
The penal process could bring to: confinement or other penalty, as for
example social useful works (but it is difficult that it happens, especially for
underage author of violation).
The consciousness to face the process (with legal costs and the real
possibility to be sentenced) is for a bully a deterrent for the whole life.
Unfortunately, in Italy a sentenced person is indelible marked.
It is possible to carry out the activity of penal mediation between an author
of a violence and a victim.
The civil process brings to the sentence to compensate the damage. The
damage to be compensated is those moral one, biological and existential.
The Law Court of Bologna, in front of cases of damages between underage
peers has recognized the existence of the responsibility of the School as a
defect of organization connected to the lack of supervision by school
personnel; the same law court has sentenced the Ministry of Education to
compensate a biological, moral and existential damage.
Parents’ task
• Children must learn that bullying is a wrong behaviour and that it
is not part of a natural growing process.
• In order to avoid them to become victims of bullying it is necessary
to:
– Enhance their self-estimation
– Encourage them to develop their own positive features and abilities
– Teach them that, in order to defend oneself from bullying, it is not
necessary to use physical strength, but it is more useful to be self
confident
– Stimulate them to build relationships with schoolfellows and not to
isolate oneself; so it is important to play sport, identify friends with
similar interests or features
• In order to avoid them to become bullies it is necessary to teach
them how to:
– Express own anger constructively and with maturity
– Communicate sincerely
– Identify oneself with others and understand the consequences of own
behaviours
– Follow the example of what they see at home.
Practical suggestions for
parents
To do
•
•
•
•
•
•
Encourage your son to speak about
what happened, in order to understand
the facts
Try to remain objective, and consider that
you are listening to a partial version of the
story
Don’t try to punish bullies on your own.
Such solving often get things worse
Once acquired a clear picture of the
situation, and of how you intend to solve
it, contact the school
Make clear that you desire to cooperate
with the school in problem solving
Remember that school mangers need
time to make proper enquiries and to
speak to teachers, students and maybe
other parents. Consider that school staff
may have not assisted to bullying acts, so
it is not always easy to establish if bullism
or only innocuous jokes that passed the
limits occurred
Not to do
•
•
Parents that behave as follows are not
helpful:
– Make children believe that it is a
non important thing
– Blame own son
– Blame the school
– Accuse someone without
understanding the facts
– Search for a scapegoat
– Demand for all the particulars all in
once and identify easy solutions.
Many parents get angry, and rush
immediately to the school. It could be a
mistake. Firstly because their son might
prefer to keep the secret, so not to
inform the school. Secondly he might
feel endangers, being afraid of a
revenge from the bully.
What school staff members
should do 1/2
School manager
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Admit that bullying concerns any school, and that the
educational task consists in preventing and combating it
If necessary, place students’ well being and school
educational role before the defence of the school image
Promote and participate in building up a culture against
bullying, undertake it officially and make it shared by the
school globally
Promote initiatives aimed at understanding the existence
and entity of bullying at school
Stimulate teachers to take care of the educational aspect
of their work, and to check what happens among students
Search for the most proper organizational modalities to
reach foreseen aims
Intervene directly on most difficult and serious cases
Establish, together with teachers, necessary disciplinary
proceedings
Keep decisions taken
Search for alliances outside school
A teacher
•
•
•
Insert, within
didactics,
cooperative
activities promoting
relations set up and
mutual knowledge
among pupils
Propose, in class,
activities for
bullying prevention
and contrast
Involve colleagues
of the parentstudent-teacher
association
representing a
class in a joint
dealing with
problems detected
What school staff members
should do 2/2
Parent-student-teacher association
representing a class
•
•
•
•
•
Share observations and information about
youngsters, being conscious that each one
owns a partial view and that all the different
points of view may reach together a more
articled understanding
Agree on clear and comprehensible conduct
rules, and on related sanctions, being
committed to their respect in class in a
coherent and uniform way
Establish intervention strategies, e.g.: how
to transmit a message refusing bullying, who
is available for speaking to bullies and
victims, who is in charge of building a
dialogue with the class, haw all can make
relations among students easy, how to give
support to a victim without ridicule him/her,
etc.
If necessary, establish incisive disciplinary
measures
Monitor the evolution of the cases and verify
effectiveness of the intervention
A school collaborator
•
•
•
Report any bullying fact observed to the
teachers of involved guys
If, within an informal speech, someone
relates you about what happened to him or
to other fellows, listen sincerely and try to
defend victims and to invite bullies and
supporters to reflect upon what they have
done
After a conversation like that, if the case is
grave, report it to a teacher trying to keep all
due respect for who related the facts
Teachers’ task
Behaviours to pay attention to are
those that transform a joke into
humiliation, arrogance, finally falling
into illegality. It is suggested to:
– Monitor jokes in order to prevent
excesses;
– Identify the limits of respect in order
to prevent that a joke falls into
humiliation/arrogance;
– Identify the limits that enable to clarify
that humiliation and arrogance contain
characteristics that may easily take
shape of crimes, that lead to penal
sphere.
The premonitory signals for preventing
the phenomenon should be identified in
the excess of joke, in the limits that
may be overcame and that often lead
to humiliation and arrogance.
Joke >>> To monitor
Excess
Limit
Bullying
Humiliation
Arrogance
Illegality >>> To denounce
When penal or civil laws are
violated
• By now in Italy there is not any specific law regulating
bullying.
• Bullying actions are:
1 insults, offences
2 defamation
3 racism
4 unmotivated critiques and excessive control
5 slight thefts
6 extortion
7 menaces
8 private violence
9 aggressions or violent games
10 personal damages
11 exclusion from games
11 beatings
13 damages to others’ stuffs.
Typologies of damages that
may be repaid in Italy
1) MORAL DAMAGE (physical or moral sufferings,
perturbation of victim’s mood, tears, pains, concerns);
2) BIOLOGICAL DAMAGE (damage to health, to personal
physical and psychical integrity);
3) EXISTENTIAL DAMAGE (damage to person, to her
existence, to life quality, relational life, reserve,
reputation, image, sexual self-determination).
• The existential damage implies that a person cannot act
anymore as she used before, as aspired.
Practical suggestions for
teachers
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
In order to understand the dimensions of the phenomenon, it is useful to make pupils
fulfil a questionnaire and to organize a day of debate involving teachers and
parents.
A better checking activity during recreation may put victims away safely, being
recreation a situation in which bullies act undisturbed.
Usually elder students make bullying against youngest. Spaces and times devoted
to recreation may be divided.
Praises, rewards and sanctions may modify behaviours of the most aggressive
students (even if they are not the sole tool)
It often happens that students fear or feel ashamed of personally reporting what is
happening. It could be useful to have a telephone number to apply
“Boxes of bullying” may be established, in which students may leave notes
reporting what is happening: identify leader students that may help victims; open a
psycho-pedagogical desk to which student and adult may refer
It is important to make students used to relate what is happening, being silence a
strong ally of bullies
Once identified a bully or a victim, in order to help him it is necessary to immediately
speak to him about what is happening
In class, students may jointly identify few simple conduct rules against bullying.
Such rules should be exposed in a well visible way, and all the students should
respect them
What should be avoided at
school?
Avoid to put bullies on a pedestal
Avoid the perverse effect deriving from a systematic stigmatization and
generalization: “You are always as usual, it is always your fault, etc.”. Such
communication forms emphasize the social role of the bully, and give
him power within a group, that somehow teachers recognize.
Such phenomenon was noticed also within studies on “ultras” football
supporters: at a certain point researchers realized that TV shootings acted
as amplifier of violence, because “ultras” supporters wanted to demonstrate
to their friends to be brave, fearless, able to challenge and to perform
transgress actions. So they were glad to be seen, and TVs, shootings
fostered such behaviours. During the last years TVs stopped to shoot
conflicts among supporters, and the situation got better.
Even if the same strategy could not be brought to schools, the logic under
such strategy is that it is necessary to avoid a “wall against wall”, that
paradoxically ends up with an overemphasizing of the bully’s negative
identity, the same to fight against.
What should be avoided at
school?
Avoid to make school as the unique depositary of interventions on
bullies
School should, as much as possible, involve the resources that city
and territory offer concerning such phenomenon.
Avoid any pushiness of the territory
School must perform its role, that is to foster learning, also social and
relational learning. In any case it is a limited role, clearly defined. It
should not be a therapeutic role of social assistance.
It is necessary to avoid on one side any delegation, and on the other
side that all the possible interventions of the territory converge
towards school.
In other terms each actor should play own role, otherwise a confused
situation may be set up, leading to an inability to produce real changes.
What should be avoided at
school?
Avoid any identification of the victim with own role,
making it a flag
A lacking identity finds a sort of compensation and
gratification in being a victim. That may seem as
paradoxical. But youngsters search for a collocation, that
may also coincide with a passive role.
Teachers should help them to find an active
collocation, and to de-emphasize victimization in order
to avoid it repeating endlessly. It is a very complex
intervention, because victims may induce certain
behaviours unconsciously.
What should school do?
Distinguish limit cases
Make a distinction between situations near to pathology, and normal
situations of relational disease, being the latter very diffused due to
a more and more virtual society, where cohabitation experiences are
difficult and children autonomy is strongly compromised.
It is necessary to distinguish limit cases, being relational diseases
very diffused.
It is very useful to involve both parents
The role of father is very important in the framework of such
phenomenon, so parents must be summoned together, or rather a
meeting with both of them separately should be asked. Parents
should both participate in a joint strategy school-family aimed to
reduce arrogances, bullying and violence at school.
What should school do?
Within a dialogue with parents, judgments and therapeutic attitudes
(psychological indications) should be avoided
It is enough to clearly remind or inform about the educational rules of
the school. Families should be asked to help school to make rules
respected. Families should not become therapeutic nuclei, but they should
create an alliance with school, so that scholastic experience becomes
positive for their sons.
Teachers should face such emergencies in equip
Otherwise there is the risk that “bad” boys build strange alliances with
some teachers, excluding other colleagues and creating a grave fracture in
compactness, that is a key prerequisite to reduce such emergencies
transforming them into growing occasions.
Teachers must not establish a separated contact and communication point
with bullies: a joint work is needed, so that students feel as if they are into a
firm case, not offering any escaping possibility.
What should school do?
Teachers must work on their ability to live within conflicts
Conflict is always read in terms of fear, menace, and when a teacher meet very war
students repulsion and escaping mechanisms may be set up. So teachers seem frail,
exposed to denigration or to indifference of bullies.
Conflict competence is a long term proceeding, on which it is necessary to work,
especially in terms of firmness in dialoguing and listening.
It is necessary to set up a consultancy service at school, working on immediate
emergencies
A team of experts should help teachers to face difficulties, and to find reasons to what
is happening, to understand different situations and to find proper solutions. A
consultant acts immediately, while training needs longer times. Sometimes a
consultant can have a maieutic power, enabling a teacher to emotionally detach from
a situation, relating it to someone else, to receive proper indications, implement them,
see what happens and recuperate own operational ability. Consultant do not
substitute teachers, but bring them useful indications to overcome an emergence. An
expert can read differently a situation, helping teachers coming out from an impasse.
Suggestions for students
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
It is difficult for a bully to blame on you if you
relate to a friend what is happening.
When a bully provokes you, don’t do anything
and go away. If he tries to convince you to do
something that you don’t want, say “NO”
firmly.
Don’t worry if others believe that you fear
about the bully and you are escaping from
him. Remember that a bully cannot lay blame
on you if you don’t want to listen to him.
A bully disports if you react, get angry or cry. If
he provokes you, try to keep your temper,
don’t seem fearful or sad. Without any
reaction from you, the bully will get bored and
will leave you in peace.
When a bully provokes or hurts you, don’t
react or come to blows. You may make the
situation getting worse, or take on yourself the
guilt for what has happened.
If a bully wants your things, it isn’t worth
quarrelling. Let him catch whatever he wants,
but relate immediately the fact to an adult.
Make the bully understand that you don’t fear
about him, and that you are more clever and
humorous than him. You will embarrass him
and he will let you stay in peace.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Usually a bully provokes you when you are
alone. If you stand beside adults and
schoolfellows that can help you, it will be
more difficult for him to approach.
In order to avoid a bully you can take
another street to go to school; during
recreation stand beside adults and other
schoolfellows; use toilets when other
persons are in.
Any time a bully hurts you, report the fact
on your diary. It will help you to remember
how things went.
Undergoing bullying is painful. Relate it to a
trustee adult. You cannot face problems all
alone!
If you are acquainted of the fact that
someone undergoes bullying, relate it to an
adult. It doesn’t mean to be a spy, but only
to help others. If you were in his place you
would have been happy to receive an help.
You can also ask for an help to the
policeman of your quarter.
5. Tools
Conflict management
Prevent bullying
Teachers or educators that aim to face this situation have two strategies: a
direct and an indirect one.
Direct strategy
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A direct strategy is based on bullying behaviours repression, and support to a victim
So this is plugging action, a reaction, a reassurance, so as a particular situation
may be controlled by teachers
Direct strategies are based on the justice restoration concept
Indirect strategy
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Indirect strategy needs for a premise. Let’s ask what is lacking: soundness or
education? In what are new generations lacking? Are we speaking about an
educational or a therapeutic deficit?
Maybe a pedagogic-educational culture is lacking, in which real, concrete,
tangible competencies may grow. The question is what competencies are to be
transferred to youngsters in order to help them live without violence. If bullism
belongs to violence, so we have to reason from this point of view.
Indirect strategies are based on socio-affective relations, or either on interpersonal
and group relations. So they tend to develop cohesion, sense of belonging and
cooperation.
The main two strength points are: relation and group. So a changing perspective is
needed in order to analyze the situation.
From justice pursuit, to new relational
competencies. Let’s start from two
examples.
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Abdel, Muslim, 13 years old,
doesn’t eat pork meat in refectory.
Sometimes Mario, Luca, Fabio
and Alberto substitute beef for
pork meat, without others being
aware. Abdel always see them
and send them to hell. Once Abdel
doesn’t notice it. When they tell
him about the exchange, he gets
hungry and verbally attacks them.
Problem: is it a question of justice
for a teacher, or is there
something else from an
educational point of view?
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Irene, 12 years old, writes on her
diary about her passion for Fabio,
13 years of age of the 3° B. The
references are very explicit, near
to obscenity. Elena finds the diary
and circulates it among the rest of
the class, during gym. Irene, once
noticed the fact, goes to the
teacher to cry her angry and her
needs for justice.
What should the teacher do?
Relational discrepancies among students:
what pedagogical categories to read
them?
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Justice category refers to the idea of “who’s wrong and who’s right?”: a teacher
must establish it. It means to show where a behaviour is right and wrong, and to
clearly define a guilty and possible a victim.
What does an adult do according to this logic? He/she re-establish a formal,
external and essentially arbitrary justice, based on own individual ideas and
perception of reality.
This has been the dominant educational model: it worked until the crisis of the
authority concept (1968). Then there was a drastic, clear generational rift, marking
the crisis of the authority concept within western society. From that moment, “to do
justice” stopped to mean an implementation of a series of interventions based on an
unquestioned authority, starting to coincide to a set of verbal fragments that didn’t find
any effective incidence on youngsters’ reception: we are speaking about reproaches,
telling-off.
When the concept of authority was established, simple justice could work, but
nowadays it cannot work anymore. Youths themselves don’t believe in the concept
of authority any more, they say openly what they believe. The attempt to re-establish
justice cannot work, it is necessary to adopt a new, more complex, less banal vision.
We can only reason in terms of prevention, that is to understand what learning may
let youths live in a framework where bullism is not more believed as an acquired
variable.
We should not implement any direct intervention on bully or victim, reasoning as if
they were not part of the same group. School is different from therapy: it has a more
complex and articulated dimension.
How to prevent violence?
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Franco Fornari stated that violence represents the inability to live conflicts, that corresponds to the
incapacity to accept difficulties necessarily generated by relations, wishing others to be eliminated at any
cost through violence, in order to eliminate any relational complications.
Some statistics underlined that the 80% of murders in Italy occurs within families. Proximity, when it
becomes conflictual, it needs specific competencies in order to be managed, and it is necessary to work
on them.
If, vice versa, we believe that violence derives from conflicts, it is necessary to keep youngsters far from
any quarrel, challenge, contact and experience. Instead, if we believe that it is a lack in conflictual
competence, so we have found the target to work on. Within the dimension of violence there is a strong
tendency to eliminate any conflictual complication, because it generates some difficulties.
So bullying appears, like other violent behaviours, as a real conflictual inability. Actually, it owns the
typical features of incompetence, that are the following four:
1. A bully does not consider the problem, but attacks a person, humiliate her; he doesn’t mind about
concrete problems, but always attack the other person.
2. A bully reacts brutally, timeliness, doesn’t try to reflect, doesn’t own any symbolic, self-analysis
capability, he doesn’t try to understand situations, to communicate, to find a symbolic filter to own
impulses, he goes straight on as a tank.
3. A bully wants to win at all costs, to prevail, without considering that sometimes within a conflict the
winner is the one who feel worse – actually he does – and that, in any case, in conflictual situations
it is necessary to find solutions concerning common interests, and not an absolute win. Success
does not mean win, this is very important for the new competencies of conflicts management.
4. Finally, a bully is unable to recognize and manage own emotions.
Emotional lack, emotional silence, inability to listen one’s own and others’ needs are typical of conflictual
incompetence. Bullies seem to be dominated by an hyper-maniacal derangement of mind, bringing to
a narcissistic concentration on oneself only, making others as pure objects of power abuse.
If we organize the previously explained points into a positive view, we may identify the four key elements
of a conflictual competence, that become on their turn a precise strategy to prevent violence.
Class as a resource against
bullying
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The subject of training action is the class. The problem is to be able to enable conflicts
expression within class as a learning tool, no more as a demon to fight against.
It is worth to notice that sometimes bullies have perfect conducts at home, or either they
seem as extremely different. A bully doesn’t have a label: he acts as a bully within a
precise framework. Some of them, when they change school/class, they stop being bullies.
A precise context gives to a bully a series of opportunities to develop a set of nihilistic
features. A bully does not perform bullying anywhere, but only where he finds the
appropriate context. So due restraints have to be found within the group.
All the indirect strategies to implement are based on the group, and especially on teachers’
capabilities to suspend any judgment, because otherwise they go back to the justicialist
logic explained before. A teacher is an expert in learning processes.
First of all, it is necessary to activate processes of conflicts expression within a group. It
is a frightening step: what will happen once expressed a conflict within a group? Conflicts
resolution is not a matter of teacher, but of the group itself. But if expression is not
activated, bullies can continue to perform their conducts clandestinely. Instead, trough the
group we can highlight situations without teachers being protagonists. The risk stands in
the possibility that a group forms a coalition against teacher, this is way it is important to
stress the responsibility of the class group.
Then it is necessary to activate processes of group mediation, where conflicts are
accountably undertaken by the group itself or by the groups’ representatives. Also helphelp processes may be adopted, that are positives alliances among the different subgroups in terms of socialization ability.
Training techniques and tools:
conflicts expression
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Among the various techniques of conflicts expression in class, the
cooperation assembly is very useful
A precious source of info on this item is the book written by Danielle
Jasmine, a Canadian teacher. The cooperation assembly tool owns ritual
contents: the class members, once a week, fix an appointment at a precise
time and in a precise place, and meet arranging themselves in circle.
Why a circle? It reminds cohesion, the possibility to see and talk together.
People meet themselves in order to analyze conflicts, or either difficult
situations, or the complaints left during the week into an apposite box.
The members of the circle have the possibility to debate with the rest of the
class about the complaints left, helped by a teacher that doesn’t go
deeply into a judgment on contents. Teacher’s task is to simply foster
dialogue, enabling all the members to take the floor, intervene, express own
opinions and eventually to help students overcoming the problem in
question.
It is worthy to keep a registry of solved conflicts, and to ritualize
situations making students sign a solution agreement.
Training techniques and tools :
group mediation
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Concerning group mediation, the technique now diffused in Italy, but that is used
also in UK, Germany and United States, is the “mutual teaching” one, applied to
conflicts management.
One of the most diffused theories in pedagogy is that mutual teaching works well,
being a teaching offered by a coetaneous more effective than the one offered by
a teacher.
This technique is based on the idea that, within a school, there are always persons
available for the role of helper within conflicts and quarrels among coetaneous,
offering mediation
Mediation is a very specific concept. Conflicts mediation means to consider the role
of a third party that implements an hands off procedure favouring communication
processes aimed to identify possible positive results. A mediator doesn’t take sides,
nor tries to find solutions instead of quarrellers, but he/she helps to do it.
In order to be good mediators, youngsters need some training, because mediation
concept matches with personal automatisms that are more oriented towards the
logics of judgment and alliance.
After the training, the school has to provide a specific place where some students
can help their coetaneous that voluntarily ask for a support in a quarrel or a conflict.
In this way a school institutionalizes a service of mutual teaching for conflicts
management.
What are the benefits? It fosters a process of autonomy and learning. If we work in
the field of open expression and mediation, regressive alliance processes - as those
of a certain subjection to a bully - reduce themselves, because everything becomes
explicit and transparent, so it is more difficult to set up alliances.
Quarrel management without
culprits
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During the last years, psycho-pedagogy has recognized the training and evolutionary
value of quarrels and contrasts among children in the different life phases. Primary
socialization processes represent a qualifying moment in the genesis of personalities able
to face frustrations, tensions and to live autonomy and life challenges serenely and
steadiness.
During the first years of life (from 1,5 to 3 years) quarrels represent moments for
recognizing the presence of a coetaneous, that limits personal egocentric and selfreferential world. This first step brings to an embryonic empathy ability, to the capability to
put in other’s shoe, to try to understand his sufferance, and to find similitude between one’s
own and other’s experiences.
From 3 to 6 years of age, social elements are no more seen as simple limits or pleasures,
representing a physiologic moment in the management of the presence of other persons,
so they really formative.
From 6 years of age the development of a social sense of personal identity acquires an
absolute supremacy on other more self-referential components, so a child starts to esc
from own narcissism, to build his ability to be a group member and to consider rules as
important aspects for his development and growth.
Finally, during adolescence, groups become the central elements of life chooses of
youngsters, that find a narcissistic reflex in staying with others, and the capability to
overcome a vision centred uniquely on own needs, finding in the others the way towards
autonomy and adult age.
There is a big difference between quarrelling and bullying. The latter has a specific
meaning: a continuous and systematic arrogance targeted to a weaker and less capable
person, that cannot defend herself. So bullying differs from common quarrels owning an
evolutionary feature. Educators must recognize such difference, and intervene differently
when bullying is performed (otherwise it may acquire more grave features)
Traditional management of
quarrels
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Traditional pedagogy opposes children’ quarrels, considering them as a
transitory moment to be deprived of their intrinsic meaning and filled up with
harmony, order, good feelings.
In other terms the dimension of encounter, listening and mutual
comprehension has often been opposed to the one of quarrel and conflict,
forgetting that we are speaking about two poles of the same social co
presence. So they need a respective recognition as indispensable moments
of social relations, as in human lives life and death represent indispensable
and important moments.
Encounter cannot exist without a moment in which, trough quarrel,
youngsters recognize themselves and the others through contrast and
confrontation.
The overcoming of such traditional thought has been long and hard. There
is often a tendency to recur to the category of harmony as opposed to
the disturbance one, without considering them as belonging to the same
organism. Fortunately, nowadays quarrel is seen as a necessary growing
phase.
Orientations towards an educational
management of quarrels among
children: educational neutrality
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Usually children try to find in adults allies to obtain justice and emotional
compensation. Such requests may generate in educators, teachers and
parents a reactivation of ancient ghosts. So adults may fall into
manipulation and victimization, stressing alliances with the weakest
quarrellers, so becoming the strongest.
Educational neutrality – not to look for a culprit - may avoid those
situations
Such step is important in order to avoid children to: develop a justicialist
behaviour towards schoolfellows (really useless) and to strongly depend
on adults, the latter becoming an absolute judge to continuously appeal in
order to obtain justice.
Unfortunately educators are really sensitive towards the concept of justice,
often saying that something is right or wrong. This attitude is really
pernicious, preventing children to learn how to manage quarrels with the
aim to reach a mutual listening and comprehension, so an integration
starting from the inside, not from the outside.
Orientations towards an educational
management of quarrels among
children: narrative decantation
• This orientation is linked to the previous, and foresees
the right of children to learn by facing their quarrels.
Educators should create a narrative decantation
between the two contenders, through the technique of
“give me your version”. According to this technique,
each quarreller must try to explain how events went
without insulting the counterpart or having threatening
attitudes. Own version may be related verbally or in
writing.
• Obviously, narrative decantation represents a substantial
engagement for youngsters, so becoming a deterrent
for those who tend to look for adults to obtain justice.
Orientations towards an educational
management of quarrels among
children: need to rebuild the relation
• After a breaking due to quarrels, it is necessary to rebuild a relation
being it inter-relational, group or communitarian. Ritual elements
are very useful, creating an effective connection in critical moments.
For instance, within a class a day/hour to debate on quarrels
happened may be very useful, enabling students (in circle) to relate,
express facts trying to find an agreement.
• Rituality forces to reinforce links, even when they find an
obstacle. New links may be build through, for instance, the following
ritual structures: anger basket, reconciliation table, lawyers or circle
rituals.
• Any group provided with tools to face own conflicts internally, is a
social organism with many more possibilities than those avoiding
conflicts, or maintaining latent conflicts. Educators must be able to
find ways to make children express conflicts, living them as
developmental moments.
• Obviously, any educator must also guarantee a clear, explicit and
realistic system of rules. As much as rules are clear, as simpler will
be conflicts management.
Read conflicts
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Let’s think about a magnetic resonance. We, as laymen, cannot understand it, while an
experienced doctor is able to obtain for these enigmatic images lots of information.
The same may be said about conflicts. They may appear as mysterious experiences for
someone, activating personal elements that are often unknown.
There isn’t any symptomatology enabling a clear reading of conflicts, nevertheless there
are signals and elements consenting to read them from an informative view.
The question could be as follows: what information do conflicts express?
A meaningful example could be the one of conflicts at work. Actually, relational difficulties
often expressed in terms of lamentation, anger, hysteria or attack directed to another
person, represent a content happening within an homeostatic system – as the working one
is-. An organism signalizes a dysfunction through conflicts. Conflicts admission may
enable to manage perturbations in terms of reassembling or communication.
At work may also exist situations of conflict latency, preventing communication. Interpreting
these conflict latencies as a conflict – and not as harmony – may enable staff members to
acquire important elements for building new forms of comprehension and functionality.
Judgment suspension and
adequate distance 1/2
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Conflicts may be read through a judgment suspension, that is an inhibition from
guiltiness research (impeding a clear reading of what is happening within a relational
framework)
Another essential condition to read conflicts stands in the distance. As in order to
focus the content of a book it is necessary to find the proper distance, an excessive
approaching (emotional involvement) to a conflict prevents from catching dynamics
concerned with a situation. On the other side, an excessive distance implies a sort of
absence from understand capability.
Distance is an indispensable criterion to catch what is happening, delivering an
emotional cooling. Normally, a temporization – meant as capability to control own
anxiety and escape necessity or suddenly attack – enables to find the adequate timespace to understand what is happening.
Conflict is a phenomenon owning an “interior”, an “exterior”, a “superior” and an
“inferior” side. It often emerges the simplest part, but the most interesting
dimension of a conflict is hidden and complex.
But the searching for causes is an approach the prevent from really understanding
conflicts working. Actually there is an element of simultaneous reality that represents
the real object of work. For instance, in the case of annoyer children, searching for
causes tends to refer to familiar, genealogic and sometimes genetic elements,
without considering the functionality of the school institution in the precise context of
the class.
Also causative communications within conflicts are to be avoided, tending to accuse
the other part of behaviours generated by negative dimensions, backgrounds
unconsciously acted, with a denigrator scope.
Judgment suspension and
adequate distance 2/2
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The question enabling conflicts reading is based on the how (not the why).
It activates a functionalistic comprehension of the contextual content within
a situation, explaining litigants’ behaviours. But any conflict reading should
not underestimate the fact that behind a conflict situation there are always
some needs. Needs reading represents a deep comprehension moment
enabling to understand specific behaviours.
A typical case is the one of students that in class tend to implement
exhibitionistic behaviours. They acquire some advantages, even if teachers
tend to stigmatize them from the explicit content point of view. Exhibitionism
feeds on this stigmatization, that enables the acquisition of “secondary”
advantages that are very important for behaviours maintenance. Needs
reading – need to be seen – explains the nature of the conflict.
Four areas for conflicts
reading
Exploration area
Questions
Placement
· Does conflict concern myself?
· Does it concern the others?
· Where should I put it within the quadrant of conflicts?
· Is it manifest or latent?
Needs
· Is there any help request? Is it explicit or latent?
· Is the conflict a pretext to express deeper needs?
Emotions
· What am I feeling?
· What are others feeling?
· Do I know this emotion?
· Do I recognize myself in others’ emotions?
Advantages
· Are there any explicit advantages at intra-personal level in keeping
the conflict alive?
· Are there any implicit advantages?
Conflict areas 1
• Foremost there is the placing – space-temporal – area of a conflict,
concerning the distinction between conflicts regarding oneself or the
others, and the capability to recognize a conflict placed in a specific
context (organizational or interpersonal). So the question “who does
the conflict belong to” and the spatial-temporal context to place it are
very important, in order to understand its nature (manifest, latent,
implicit, subterranean). Conflicts may be present also within
apparently harmonic situations.
• The second point concerns the needs. They represent the
underground part of conflicts. Usually they are generated by
unsatisfied needs, frustrating situations, inability to properly
communicate something. Often conflicts lye on a request of help, to
be explored and listened, also to avoid its transformation into a
threatening or even submissive or possessive attitude.
The iceberg
External part of a conflict
(generally used as a pretext)
Internal or submerged part
of a conflict
Conflicts may be symbolized by an iceberg, with an apparently noticeable external part, but with a
resolutely ampler and more consistent submerged part.
Often the external part – used as conflict pretext - is banalized, as if only the submerged part of the
iceberg was important.
Any conflict needs for a deep respect, a listening capability able to recognize the importance of its
self-serving nature as a communicational element. Deeper reasons shouldn’t be placed before conflicts’
elements which are really pretexts: both these aspects have their own legitimacy, and obviously a
conflict is often a pretext for facing more demanding situations.
But it is necessary also to stick with such superficial elements.
Conflict areas 2
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The third point is the emotional-relational one. It is worthy to repeat that conflicts
don’t coincide with emotions, even if emotions are necessarily parts of conflicts.
Emotions indicate a consistent conflict presence, involving a subject on an intrapsychical plan, but conflicts involve a wider dimension, pertaining to relations more
than emotions. The capability to stop and identify one’s emotions, asking oneself
what others do feel during a conflict, posing oneself questions that enable the
activation of a dialogue with own weakest parts, and recognizing such fragility as a
deep human part that makes us similar to each other, is decisive.
The fourth and last point – maybe the most difficult – is the advantages one.
Conflicts are so gravid of sufferance and fear that catching the way in which their
maintenance may represent also an advantage is difficult. But this reading key is
important, consenting a distancing that enables to understand how conflicts are part
of all of us. Conflict perception somehow coincides with an own state of the soul, so it
is impossible to leave a conflict without recognizing in it a part of oneself, so also an
element of advantage. Advantage is meant as an intrapersonal space, centred on the
element of defence, of protection or narcissism, that enables a person to keep alive a
set of presupposes believed as intangible. They are often strategies leading to
masochism, but they must be identified and accepted because only in this way the
dysfunctional aspect of such pseudo-advantages may be recognized, so as the
possibility to activate an internal re-connection and new communicational
transformative processes.
Bullies are not able to quarrel
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Bullies can survive thanks to a clandestine parasitic supplying, that makes
them operative only in certain occasions. Their strengths depend on the fear
of conflicts, still dominating our educational structure.
They terrorize the others presenting themselves as bold fellows, actually not
being like that. Bullies are not able to quarrel, they act on the quiet. They
need for empty interstices to be able to hit. Bullies simplify relationships
using violence as systematic modality for controlling the others. They
cannot really go along with conflicts.
It is necessary to drive them out from such framework, not from the
kindness one. It is necessary to rediscover the class as a place to learn how
to live relations, with their conflicts, encounters, disagreements,
discussions, confronts.
These new pedagogical paradigms may generate more open forms of
cohabitation. Such challenge cannot be faced through repression nor
indulgence.
The educational objective must be to build with new generations a grammar
of conflicts as the literacy to cohabitate well also in divergences.
Conflict literacy as peace
teaching
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There are some myths hard to die. One of the strongest is the one of peace meant as
kindness, harmony. This is a deleterious myth because it is self-destructive, containing an
impossibility of operation that makes it useless in practical terms.
Peace teaching started at the beginning of the XX century. It concerned a strengthening of
good feelings in human beings.
Warriors, members of the mafia, integralists strongly believe that they are fighting for a
cause whose aim is to make those values combated by the antagonists survive. Such
values essentially concern an affective belonging sense, but they can also coincide with
subliminal values of ideological kind (terrorists in liberation wars), implying a strong and
unconditional adhesion from the individuals.
Such values may concern the frameworks of family, motherland, belonging group, clan,
cause. In any case there is always a primary reference to a group symbiosis and fusion,
implying individual availability for the supreme sacrifice in order to make the believed
values triumph. Those who make peace teaching coincide with overemphasizing of good
feelings, basically preach the same values.
When speaking to soldiers, or to persons engaged in violent actions (e.g. ultras
supporters), it strongly emerges how their actions precisely refer to wider components, to
ideal finalities, to sentiments that are outside from a particular view or a supposed personal
malfeasance.
In this framework, at the beginning of ’80, an action of peace teaching was born. Even if
squaring things up with such heritages, it tried to build a new intervention method.
But pedagogical statements based on the idea of implementing kindness in bad boys,
emphasizing all things referred to tranquillity, harmony, absolute wellbeing, total fraternity,
still remained.
Impossible prescriptions
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Such distortion of reality produces, on a closely educational plan, relational and managerial
difficulties that may be defined as impossible prescriptions: fixing objectives that are absolutely
inconsistent with reality. They are manly strategies of problems banalization, whose standing logic
is “the problem will be solved when it will not exist anymore”. It is a sort of tautology, but it has still
a strong impact on problems managing.
Also at an educational level, the idea that quarrels among children will disappear when children
will not quarrel any more, when everybody will love each other, when the most agitated will
become calm, the annoyers will not annoy any more, etc. is still diffused. Such self-prescriptions
are impossible to be reached.
Unfortunately such prescriptions become also didactical objectives (to avoid quarrels among
children).
There is a perceptive mythology linked to a concept of peace as harmony, that prevents from
facing conflicts, perturbations, and aggressiveness within interpersonal relationships. From this
point of view, impossible prescriptions generate anxiety, permanent tension, dissatisfaction,
frustration, being themselves unattainable. Many educators are disconsolate because of relational
difficulties arising when trying to manage discipline, as if contrasts were due to contents, and not
to processes.
Some phenomena are physiologic: order and disorder are components that cannot be renounced.
The question is how to mange them, with what attitude.
The problems don’t stand in the situations in themselves, but in the attitude with which an
educator (teacher, parent) tries to face them. Nowadays difficulties faced by parents in relating to
sons are emphasized. But problems often don’t stand in youngsters’ behaviors, but in the
difficulties faced by parents in putting themselves in a problematical relational context, living it as a
full of sense dimension.
Emotional relaxation is necessary, accepting perturbations as essential and normal components of
the relations themselves. In this way anxiousness generated by impossible prescriptions
decreases, the attempt to insert positive elements within situations apparently seeming as
destructive becoming easier.
Updating maps: peace is conflict
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Peace has been considered as antithetic to conflict, and conflict seen as war,
devastation, armed fight (any dictionary offers these definitions). In order to build a
more concrete and operational possibility of peace, it is necessary to submit the
term/concept of peace to a semantic, cultural and psychic rebuilding. Recently, a
branch of research has developed, considering peace as coherent to conflict.
Peace is conflict, because it enables to maintain a relation also within divergences.
Education to peace tries to propose an idea of peace as conflict, so a new map to
cross such territories. This map believes in conflict as a generative, creative element,
as a resource within relations that cannot set aside from containing and valorising
diversity.
The most difficult aspect in this work is to decentralize oneself, trying to understand
others’ reasons, and to accept divergences. The challenge of education to peace
stands in creating the conditions to make relations feed not only with pleasantness,
but also with discordance and diversity.
Education to peace means to learn the art of cohabitation as more sophisticated than
simple tolerance, simple control of diversity. It is a continuous learning, a literacy
making us acquire the capability to lie on conflicts and diversities as moments of
growing, and no more as fearing or menacing factors.
Conflict as relation place: staying in
conflicts
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True human relations enable conflict, that is comparison, share, divergence and
opposition.
Parents that don’t consent their son to make oppositions, considering them as
friends, as accomplices, don’t allow their sons to test themselves, and to use
relations with adults as sounding board of own value, as exploring and learning
territory.
Relations must give the occasion to express parts of oneself, and free own inner and
truer dimensions, that can be expressed only within conflict relations.
Authoritative education used to deny such possibility through the formula “with
kindness or harshly”, and to impose a sole logic – generally unilateral – that aimed to
“correct”, searching for easy byways excluding somehow any conflict.
Nowadays situation is changed: educators often avoid any kind of confrontation,
renouncing to their educational power, being satisfied with an easy dimension of
mutual condescendence, that doesn’t allow growing.
There isn’t any prescription for relationships, but it is necessary to live educational
relations also in their conflicts, as a challenge driving to new competencies learning.
Those who search for a solution at all
costs cannot find it
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Discussions about conflicts have been always oriented to solutions research, without
considering that some conflicts are not solvable.
Experts make a distinction between reducible and irreducible conflicts, where the
latter don’t have any possibility of change.
Conflict literacy faces those situation from the point of view of management (not of
solution): how can situations that cannot be solved, be managed?
It is necessary to work on the therapeutically function of time, being able to manage a
temporal perspective as a transformation one. Conflicts that cannot be solved, can be
transformed. Attempts to solve conflicts are based on correct answers, on
provisions, that may led to inauspicious consequences.
On the other side, transformative dimension allows to search for conditions that may
limit damages, and that may evolve positively. Educators must not search for
solutions at all costs. Many teachers at school cannot manage “difficult cases”,
because they cannot keep the anxiety of solution. Their desire to re-establish order
and stability, make them weaker.
Educators must accept and live in dissonant situations, in informality. Nowadays,
etiquettes establishing proper behaviours do not exist any more: educators must offer
an help, being the referring points for the youngest.
Six steps for a proper management of
conflicts within educational relations
1. Remember that a conflict is a problem to be managed, not a war to be
fought.
This point attains to perception, proposing a perceptive and semantic
restructuring aimed at considering conflict as a situation to be managed. Even if
it could seem banal, often educators tend to abolish conflicts directly contrasting
their protagonists, and don’t try to deal with the situations. Annihilating the
subject may often seem easier for an educator. This first step provides educators
with the occasion to change their perspective.
2. Count up to ten before you act.
This step concerns the temporal dimension, the capability to wait for the proper
time, avoiding impulsive and compulsive reactions. This is very useful
strategically. Avoiding an immediate reaction enables to transform a situation into
a learning experience. Stalling for time enables an educator to move from a
reactive logic to a communication logic, leading to problem elaboration.
Communication represents a ritualization of conflict. Once arrived to
communication, a conflict – intended as a problem – is already in its defining
phase. Conflict competence concerns the ability to bring conflicts to a
communicational plan.
In an educational framework, many children cannot do it, so they have to be
helped in overcoming their tendency to react immediately and brutally.
Six steps for a proper management of
conflicts within educational relations
3. Don’t make eyeball to eyeball.
This step attains to conflict’s transforming moment, to the possibility to find a different way
from the one suggested by a provocation. It is a play down moment: when there is a lot of
tension, the first step to make is to lower the tension level, to enable a decantation, avoiding
conflict’s contents derailment.
This phenomenon happens in any kind of conflict. For instance, at home, the wife is irritated
because her husband spilled coffee on the tablecloth. The husband answers back that her
hairs are not well combed. This is a classical example of eyeball to eyeball, in which the
antagonists want to prevail at all costs, privileging superiority strategy to negotiation.
4. Respect conflict’s contents.
This pointy is firmly linked to the previous, suggesting to avoid “tangential answers”, that are
very diffused. Tangential answer occur when a problem as itself is not focused, always
referring to a general framework, a previous situation, a context of personal antipathy or
sympathy. This attitude implies a sense of manipulation.
Within an educational framework, facing properly a child proposing something with a marked
disturbing content, may make him/her feel recognized. Tangential answers are instead
humiliating, not recognizing the possibility for the child to propose confliction contents, not
allowing the other to propose his/her personal view about things.
This point is important because it attains to self-recognition. Each of us, not finding within
communication the respect for what expressed, feel a sensation of annoyance.
Six steps for a proper management of
conflicts within educational relations
5. Avoid any stigmatizing judgment; test constructive critic.
The two most important dimensions of conflict’s educative management are listening and
containment. This is the listening dimension. Judgment is the contrary of listening. A
stigmatizing judgment implies an humiliation, but in some occasions offering a suggestion, an
indication, or even an order is necessary.
How? There are strategies based on constructive critic, based on giving comments without
provoking a sense of menace, without the other feels as judged. The steps foreseen are the
following ones: the first is to ask for the permission; the others attain to problem
management, keeping critics on the problem, not on the person. It is a different attitude: give
an observation/critic without the other feels as invaded.
6. Be able to say no, when necessary.
Within peace education framework a passive, conformist position is more pernicious than a
position of divergence and active / creative critic. The ability to say no is indispensable,
meaning to avoid any conformist adhesion to procedures that may damage children. Often
children belong to groups within which injurious behaviours may be performed (bullying,
ultras, etc.). To say no when proper means to keep one’s idea, one’s point of view, to
recognize own value.
Educators must be able to say no, tolerating the frustrations that a no may cause to children,
escaping from a friendliness relation that risks to be very pernicious. To say no means to take
on an adult responsibility. No are to be said in the proper contents, and not continuously,
systematically. This helps children to use the same behaviour in situations in which a no may
save their life (e.g. avoiding entering a car whose driver got drunk).
Summarizing
• Conflict is a natural part of human interaction, that is
obviously made of different opinions, desires and
interests. It is mostly believed that conflicts’ natural
consequence is aggressiveness and worsening of
relations. Such conclusion is partially true, actually a
conflict resolution may be negative and destructive, but
also positive – consisting in the opportunity to better
understand oneself and the others. In particular, a
positive outcome results from the capability to modify the
conflict so as to permit an evolution and transformation
of the relation among the parts, enabling a deeper
approaching and mutual respect. This way of behaving
presupposes the acquisition of specific abilities, being
mediation one of them.
Conflicts mediation
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What does mediation mean?
It is a method of conflicts solving, where the two parts voluntarily ask for the intervention of a third
impartial person, the mediator, to reach a satisfying agreement.
Mediation is an intervention:
Not forced, within a conflict
From a third neutral person
Aimed to help the involved parts to reach a satisfying solution.
It differs from the other procedures of conflict solving, because:
The two parts participate voluntarily
They make an effort of communication, comprehension, identification of a proper agreement
Third parties – mediators – intervene
Process is important, not only result
The two parts search for an approaching.
At school, objectives of mediation are:
Peer violence prevention through the enhancement of tools oriented to constructive conflicts
solutions
Learning of necessary strategies and abilities for conflicts solving and mediating
Promotion of a socio-affective climate and of a cohabitation where encounters are felt as personal
enrichments
How to provide mediation
• Mediation is reached when it is required by
quarrellers, schoolfellows or teachers, or offered by
mediators.
• Participation in mediation must be voluntary, but it
implies the acceptation of rules and the research of
a solution.
• Mediators must be neutral, indicate process’s rules
and make them respected, listen carefully,
guarantee discretion and help finding solutions
through a proper use of questions.
Formal mediation path in relation to
scholastic problems
PRE MEDIATION
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Phase: previous to mediation
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Objective : to create conditions easing access to mediation.
PRESENTATION OF PLAY RULES
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Phase : mediation start-up
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Objectives : to create trustee and to build a mediation process
RELATION
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Phase : problem analysis
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Objectives : to make the respective versions of the conflict expressed and to let the parts show own emotions. To
make them able to speak and feel listened
PROBLEM BROADENING
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Phase : Where we are.
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Objectives : to deepen the problem and the mutual advantages and difficulties, and to search for an agreement
on the main points.
SOLUTION PROPOSAL
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Phase : How we will be.
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Objective : to tackle each theme and to search for possible agreements.
AGREEMENT STATEMENT
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Phase : Who does what, how, when and where.
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Objective : to evaluate the proposals, mutual advantages and difficulties, and to find an agreement. To make the
parts agree on a solution satisfying both, write and sign the agreement.
MEETING REVIEW
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After some time mediators may meet the parts and verity the outcomes of the agreement.
Mediation at school
WHO IS THE MEDIATOR AT SCHOOL?
• Sometimes expert mediators are engaged, but it is better to work at school exploiting
its own internal resources.
• In some Italian and European scholastic experiences the group of mediators was
composed by teachers, parents, other school employers and students. Usually
mediators present own candidatures; in the case of students, they might be elected
by their schoolfellows. Mediators attend a 1 or more days training path, and work for
a certain period at class or school level.
WHAT PROBLEMS COULD BE TACKLED THROUGH MEDIATION?
• Quarrels and verbal disputes
• Derisions and humiliations among schoolfellows
• Violence and bullying problems
• Disagreements on projects and working paths
• Difficulties in relations between teachers and students
• Difficulties among teachers, school managers and parents
PEER MEDIATION
• An innovative model really implemented in some Italian schools concerns peer
mediation. According to this model, some students – in turn – are elected as
mediators. They attend a training path and perform their role when their intervention
is requested by schoolfellows.
Informal mediation and culture of
mediation
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The mediation process above described is a formal one, where different
phases follow one another and specific techniques are used. But mediation
may also be implemented at an informal level (as often happens when two
persons are helped in finding an agreement). While in formal mediation the
rules, times and techniques require specific operating conditions, in informal
mediation techniques are more fluid, following daily communication
processes, and rules are more flexible. A mediator can be any person acting
spontaneously within a conflict situation. Intervention may not be oriented
towards an agreement, but towards relations improvement.
Besides a technical and specialized dimension, schools need to promote a
mediation culture within students and teachers.
Through such scholastic involvement pathways, schools become realities
not only enabling to know and deepen at cultural level the sense of conflict
and the strategies to positively solve it, but also a reality in which such
behaviours become daily relational practices and strategies
6. Ways of preventing the violence
phenomenon
Cinema, theatre, outdoor and
indoor activities
Bullying intervention levels
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1° level: work on single individuals (victims or bullies) trough individual
and class support, and an approach:
– moral (right-wrong),
– legal (inside-outside rules) and
– humanistic (to understand instead of punishing);
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2° level: work on class-group through a curricular approach, in order to:
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Enhance social abilities,
Promote cooperation and solidarity (e.g. friend-operator),
Provide consultancy,
Mediate peer-conflict;
3° level: work on scholastic community through a joint elaboration
(school and families) of a school programming against arrogances;
4° level: intervention with the local community in an viewpoint of
psychology of community, priming action-research processes deepening the
phenomenon at local level and searching for possible solutions, networking
all the involved actors.
From isolation to integration in
the class group
• Bullying shouldn't be considered as a problem attaining
to a single or a couple, to the victim or the prevaricator,
but to the entire class group.
• It is necessary to move from an intervention addressed
to a single person, to an educational path involving the
entire group, in order to help reflecting on behaviours
and their consequences, and improve capabilities to
tackle and solve problems and conflicts.
• It is necessary to consider rules as a shared behaviour
code guaranteeing the respect of each single person, to
read messages behind the desire to appear as bad boys,
and to offer tools for tackling problems differently.
Interventions at scholastic level
• Some objectives-guidelines to follow must be
established
• A scholastic policy presupposing a definition of bullying
concept, and some intervention strategies to be
implemented in order to fight the problem, must be
elaborated
• It is necessary to make students understand that
arrogances are not tolerated, underlining the importance
of some important values such as: respect, equality and
dignity
• Intervention area is made of the entire scholastic
community (without any particular attention to victims
and bullies)
Prevention measures
• Delivering of a questionnaire about bullying problem
– This screening enables an identification of the fellows “in risk”,
underlining how individual disease, perceived self-esteem,
depressive symptoms and quality of peer relations are linked
together roundly
• Studying day on bullying problem
– Participants (school manager, teachers, scholastic psychologist,
representatives of parents and students) jointly define a longterm program workable at an operational level
• Constant supervision during breaks
– Bullying episodes mostly occur at school and during breaks
• Activation of a more effective link of contacts and
support
– Provide a telephone number to apply when searching for support
Interventions at class level
• Foreseeing proper spaces, within didactical
activities, devoted to actions aimed to fight
bullying, schools can reach important objectives:
develop students’ consciousness on arrogances
perpetrated, discourage bullying attitudes,
increase victims’ understanding, and build a
moral against bullying at school.
• Didactical activities cannot – alone – generate
long-term changes, but they can bring a strong
contribution to the other activities performed
Curricular approach: literature,
cinema, theatre and role plays
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Objectives of such intervention are:
1.
2.
3.
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Enhance students’ consciousness about bullying
Make them acquire specific knowledge about the nature of the
problem in order to understand bullying underlying reasons
and consequences
Identify intervention strategies to ameliorate relationships
among students at school
During curricular activities some specific aspects about
bullying may be deepened in order to better
understand it in its faceting (power, oppression,
violence, prejudice).
Teachers may refer to historical episodes in order to
explain different forms of power abuse
Literature and cinematography
Literature
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Literature is a powerful mean
to discover hidden experiences
and emotions
Books to read: “L’inventore dei
sogni” - Mc Ewan, containing a
passage entitled “the bully”
After book reading, a class
discussion may enable
students to increase their
sensitiveness towards the
problem, understand
immediate and long-term
consequences of aggressive
behaviors, feel empathy
towards bullism victims
Cinematography
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To the same scope, projection
of films in class followed by a
joint discussion may be
organized
Films on bullying and
prevarication: ”Stand by me” USA, 1986, directed by Rob
Reiner; “Certi bambini” – Italy,
2004, directed by Andrea
Frazzi.
In order to make interventions
effective, it is important to
sensitize students on
consequences of systematical
and repeated bullying
episodes on victims
Performances
• Performances allow an analysis of:
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Personal experiences
Underlying motivations to bullying behaviours
Consequences of such behaviours
Their impact on bully’s of victim’s families, on victims and
teachers
– Modalities to stop such behaviours
• Performances enable youngsters to develop a deeper
empathy towards victims, and an availability to catch
motivations driving others to perform bullying acts
• Also the so called externals must be involved (those that
do not troop because of their fear to be become, in their
turn, targets of bullies)
Education to citizenship
• Pursuing personal interests
makes education to mutual
welfare difficult. Such value
needs, in order to be built,
the capability to “give
something up”. Students
must not mistake the
renunciation for the loss: the
first concerns having, the
second being.
• Objective:
Opposing uncontrolled
individualism and “listening”
inability, that show a
rarefaction of the alter
category
Education to mutual welfare
• Put into big boxes quantifiable
and desirable using material,
underlying that such material
should be sufficient for the
entire scholastic year and for all
the class
• This exercise makes students'
attention focalized on the fact
that resources are exhaustible
(vs. pervasive consumerism),
and drives a real activation of
renunciation practice, and
pursues the research of
alternative strategies when it is
not possible to accede to
desired suggestive material.
Education to cooperation
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The most cooperative children are
less overpowering than others,
more accepted by companions and
they face less difficulties in the field
of social relations.
Bullies are less cooperative than
the others, because of their low
empathy and heir hostile
behaviours towards the others;
victims’ condition depends on their
high inhibition and their low social
acceptation.
Bullying fighting should pass
through a strengthening of students
cooperative behaviours.
Objectives:
Promote, among group members,
mutual dependence with positive
valence
Quality circles
A group of 5 up to 12 persons
regularly meets, usually once a
week, trying to identify proper
modalities to improve the
organization they work in,
through a structured problems
solving process.
Problem solving process
foresees 5 phases:
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2.
3.
4.
5.
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Problem identification
Problem analysis
Solutions development
Solutions presentation
Solutions revision
Through such procedures
children should identify practical
solutions to bullying problem.
Teacher’s role
• In order to help children building cooperative
groups, they should be provided with the
possibility to talk, make questions, discuss about
activities to be performed. Only through such
joint analysis of shared situations, they
become more and more conscious about their
own and others’ social strategies, and they
acquire the capability to listen to own and others’
emotions. Such awareness eases the process of
building of empathetic capabilities.
Peer support
• Intervention trough an ecological approach, activating group’s
positive resources (those who can naturally help companions
soliciting a deeper empathy towards victims)
• Objective:
Change values and models that sustain and justify bullying acts in a
class (admiration of bullies)
• Costs-benefits theory:
The theory underlying and motivating bullying must be opposed.
Advantages deriving from bullying resorting must be reduced, promoting
diffusion of alternative behaviours, favouring the same benefits at
a lower cost.
• Models of peer support:
Activation of help and solidarity spaces directly managed by
youngsters at school or in class, emphasizing children’ natural
potentiality to console, help, and support companions in difficulty.
Cooperative games
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Implementation means
Teamwork foreseeing cooperation among participants, in order to solve playful tasks
and to reach quality results trough mutual help
•
Pre-requirements
Group members must join their abilities, testing how an active engagement of all
may provide results overcoming individual satisfaction
•
They contribute to emotive competence development activating two
spheres:
– Personal competencies, determining one’s self control. They comprehend:
• Self-consciousness: knowledge of own inner status, impulses and resources
• Self-control: capability to dominate own inner status, impulses and resources
• Motivation: ensemble of emotional tendencies easing objectives reaching
– Social competencies, determining the way in which relations with others are
managed. They comprehend:
• Empathy: consciousness about emotions, exigencies and interests of other persons
• Social abilities: ability to induce others to give desirable answers
Cooperative games –
suggestions for teachers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
To stage the game – creating conditions enabling
children to play spontaneously
To learn how to stand apart – observing what children
do and how activities develop
To help children solving problems by themselves –
helping them finding solutions to conflicts/problems
To mind game complexity – adapting the game to
concrete situations
To clarify game structures – making children noting
correlations among relevant factors for the game
To start self-regulation – avoiding someone imposing
oneself on another
Cooperative games - examples
Objective
Example
Meeting games
Creation of a first
contact among
game participants
Observation: two players sit one in front of another and carefully observe each
other. After 20 seconds they turn their back to each other and make a list of what
they have observed in one’s companion (eyes color, ear rings, etc). Those who
are able to list more than 10 characteristics obtain 1 point. So new couples are
created.
Warming-up games
Help each one to
enter the group
and to perform
tasks together with
the others
Animated bed: 5 up to 7 players kneel one near another, with their head
touching the ground and their shoulders slightly relived. A sleeping companion
lies on their shoulders. The moment midnight strikes, the bed start moving
onward, participants sticking together and without making the sleeper falling
down.
Perception games
Quietly coming into
contact with the
others, oneself and
the nature
Living theatre: a group of persons builds, with the bodies of its members, a word
or a short sentence autonomously chosen by the members or by the teacher,
while the other group must codify it.
Cooperative games - examples
Cooperative games
Definition and joint
implementation of a
problem solving
strategy
The steeplechase: two groups must exchange their places crossing a course full of
various small objects to be dodged out. A group is blindfold, while the other gives it the
instructions. If one of the two groups bumps into an obstacle, the entire group must
start again.
Games to acquire trustee
Creation of trustee
and confidence
within the group
I am…: each person describes oneself on an anonymous note, using the following
categories: musical instrument – sport – animal – vegetal – atmospheric event. Notes
are put within a box. The teacher extracts one note by another, asking to the group
who made the presentation. The interested party must confirm – once guessed well –
or, after a maximum of 5 failed attempts, must make a self-declaration.
Games with more numerous teams
Stimulation of
individual
competency to act
within a group
Tinguely’s car: 6 up to 10 players must build a Tinguely’s car (made up of the bodies
of the group’s members), moving and uttering rhythmical sounds. Play is started by a
participant, implementing a repeated movement. The second player, in physical
contact with the first, tries to state another movement, or invents another car’s
component with another sound. All the other members of the group make the same,
up to when a car with its specific sound has been created.
Cooperative games - examples
Team adventure games
Cooperation
in stressing
conditions
The millipede: in a group made of 4 persons, the first stands on all fours, the second
puts himself in front of the first, and leans his foots on the shoulders of the first
participant, subsisting own-self with his hands on the ground, the third and the fourth
unites in the same way. In this position, the group must cross a specific distance
without any member breaking the formation. The group that – in three minutes –
succeeds in crossing the longest distance wins.
Reflection games
Sharing and
joint reelaboration of
impressions
on what
tested
The group forms a circle. One by another, all the group’s members go in the centre of
the circle and express their own opinion/evaluation on the activity performed lastly.
The others react to this expression nearing (in case of agreement) or going away
from the speaker (in case of disagreement). Distance chosen reveals the measure of
agreement/disagreement with what expressed by the companion. Who doesn’t know
what to do, must remain at own place turning his back on the companion in the
centre. The speaker in the center observes the arrangements of the companions.
Then all the group’s members go back to their own initial position, and another
component goes in the centre and expresses own opinion.
7. Emotions’ control
Methods and modalities
What is emotional
intelligence?
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Our emotional state influences the performances implemented.
A pupil that is an exemplary student, is surely very capable in scholastic performances, but we do not
know if he is able to react to life vicissitudes. This is the problem. Academic intelligence does not help
in overcoming life problems.
Unfortunately schools system focuses too much on scholastic performances, ignoring emotional
intelligence – that someone defines as character – that is crucial for own learning acquis.
Emotional life management implies specific competencies: those who own them, that are able to control
own feelings, to understand others’ and to consider them according to the specific situations, are
favoured both in private relationships and in catching rules leading to success.
Individuals with well developed emotional competencies have more possibilities to be happy and
effective in their lives; those who cannot control own emotional life fight inner battles that sabotage their
capability to concentrate on work and to think lucidly.
In the book Forma mentis (1983), Gardner affirmed the existence of several types of intelligence: verbal,
logical-mathematical, spatial, kinaesthetic, musical talent, personal intelligence in its variants of
interpersonal and intra psychical capabilities. A multiple intelligence that could also cover many other
aspects.
For instance, interpersonal intelligence has been divided in:
- predisposition to leadership
- capability to feed relationships and to preserve friendships
- conflicts solving ability
- social analyses ability.
This polyhedral idea of intelligence is more explicative of capabilities and possibilities of success of a
child than the QI standards.
If interpersonal intelligence misses, it is easier to choose the wrong person to marry, the wrong job to
perform, and so on. Training on personal intelligences starts at school.
Emotional intelligence map
Peter Salovey, a psychologist of Yale, developed a map of emotional intelligence:
1.
Knowledge of own emotions, that is the self-consciousness that enables to recognize a feeling
when it arises (the keystone of emotional intelligence). Persons that recognize own feelings can
manage their life better: they are more certain when they perceive their feelings related to
personal decisions, ranging from the choice of own partner, to the professional pathway to
implement;
2.
Control of own emotions, that is the capability to control feelings so as to make them
appropriate (capability to quite oneself, to set free from anxiety, sadness, irritability). Those who
don’t own this capability constantly face tormenting feelings, while the others are more able to
perk up from life defeats;
3.
Self-motivation, that is the capability to dominate emotions in order to reach an objective. This
skill is crucial for focusing own attention, finding motivation and self-control, and for creativity
scopes. Emotional control – the capability to postpone gratifications and to repress impulses – is
the bases of any kind of realization.
4.
Recognition of others’ emotions. Empathy, another capability based on consciousness of own
emotions, is crucial for own relationships. This skill/attitude, that makes persons more sensitive to
slight social signs indicating others’ needs or desires, make its owners suitable to care, teaching,
selling and management jobs;
5.
Relations management. This skill consists in the capability to dominate others’ emotions. Such
abilities make one’s popularity, leadership and effectiveness of personal relationships increase.
Rational emotional training in
practice
• Emotional training process, meant as a
strategy for preventing emotional
diseases, implies a real work of “emotional
literacy” (as some USA psychologists
affirm). The aim of such pathway is to
educate a child’s mind to strengthen the
aspect of intelligence that favors balanced
and functional emotional reactions arising.
A subtitle to these programs may be “How
to live well with oneself and with the
others”.
Emotional literacy
•
Emotional literacy means teaching to a child the ABC of his own emotions. The Emotion model
adopted within emotional teaching includes the three elements intervening in any emotional show:
the point A considers the activating event, the situation lived by an individual; in the point C we
find his emotional and behavioural reaction. Between A and C the point B intervenes, that is the
individual mental representation of reality, own way of thinking, interpreting and evaluating, within
own mind, what happened at stage A.
•
The ABC of emotions, if taught prematurely to a child, represents the first step for a real emotional
vaccination, because he will be able to understand own emotional negative reactions so as to
transform them afterwards. It does not mean that he will not feel negative emotions any more, but
that he will not be overpowered by them, being able to dominate them.
•
Many persons approaching for the first time the Rational Emotional Training are confused by the
term “rational”. This term may generate a negative impression, being erroneously understood as
“lack of emotionalism”. So many persons consider this approach as an attempt to transform
human beings in aseptic individuals. This is wrong!
•
The Rational Emotional Training recognizes the value of all the emotions, also of the negative
ones, because they are fundamental for the surviving of the human beings. So as aches
communicate us that something is damaging our body, the emotional disease is a signal informing
us about the opportunity to mobilize our resources in order to face the situation. But when this
emotional disease becomes too intense, it will overpower us making us unable to activate our
personal resources. So the aim of the Rational Emotional Training is not to eliminate any negative
emotion, but to minimize their impact on individual lives, favouring at the same time the
maximization of positive emotions.
Programme of Rational
Emotional Training
•
•
•
•
Usually a Rational Emotional Training program foresees 3 phases.
1. First of all a child is helped to recognize and identify his own emotions, to be
conscious of own feelings in occasion of specific emotional diseases.
2. Then the child is helped to identify the relation existing between own ways of
feeling and thinking, and to understand that if he feels somehow, this depends on
his way of thinking.
3. Finally, a child will be helped to intervene on the mental mechanisms causing
dysfunctional emotions, fostering a transformation in his mind and so changing
something in his inner dialogue, that is the way in which he relates to himself
when interpreting and evaluating what happens.
This is named “cognitive renovation”.
Nobody could teach to a child to swim, being the child unable to float in a swimming
pool. So it would be impossible for a teacher to teach pupils how to face negative
emotions, if the teacher himself has not jet acquired such ability.
So the implementation of an Emotional training pathway must start from a work made
by a teacher on himself. It does not mean to repress own emotions, but to transform
them acting on the mechanism that determine negative feelings arising and
persisting. Such mechanism stands within our mind, and it is made by our thoughts.
So, acquiring the capability to face negative emotions means to learn how to
recognize and transform own irrational thoughts.
Irrational thoughts: let’s learn how to
recognize and transform them
•
•
This process implies the following phases:
1. Consciousness of a negative feeling arising;
2. Recognition of thoughts preceding and accompanying this mood manifestation;
3. Identification of harmful or irrational thoughts;
4. Correction and transformation of such dysfunctional thoughts through reasoning;
5. Continuous recourse to new and more adequate ways of thinking, so as to test
emotional and behavioural reactions more functional to the situation.
Implementing a RET in class means to create learning experiences through which
pupils acquire consciousness of own emotional moods, and of cognitive mechanisms
influencing them, and then to apply such competencies in scholastic problems and
difficulties solving.
The main aims pursued through RET principles and methods application are:
– To favour self and others’ acceptation
– To enhance tolerance to frustration
– To constructively express own moods
– To understand relations existing between thoughts and emotions
– To increase frequency and intensity of pleasant moods
– To foster the acquisition of abilities of self-regulation of own behaviour.
RET implementation modalities
•
RET implementation within a class may follow three different modalities:
1. Informal approach. In this case the concepts related to emotional
wellbeing are transferred to a pupil while he is facing a particular difficult
situation. All the class fellows may be involved through joint talks and
exercises.
2. Structured lessons. A program articled in a series of lessons,
developed according to a taxonomy of objectives, is defined. Lessons
are of experiential kind, including simulation games, joint talks, role
playing. The program may be addressed to a subgroup of students
belonging to different classes, or to a class in its whole.
3. Integration in curricular subjects. This modality foresees the
integration of RET contents in subjects mostly suitable to such
integration. Independently from the implementation modality chosen,
teaching the philosophy of rational thought with the aim to help oneself
and the others, will be very useful for teachers and pupils for a more
happy and productive school life.
RET structured pathway within a yearly
scheduling
MAIN COUNTRY LANGUAGE
•
Identify and name emotions
•
Identify, within a text, passages connoting emotions
•
Describe in writing emotional episodes
•
Enrich own lexicon, being able to describe emotional
moods of different intensity
•
Distinguish among objective and subjective realities
•
Test the logical consistency of an argumentation
•
Confute and transform irrational thoughts
•
Training to rational thinking
SOCIAL STUDIES
•
Develop the capability to talk, hold a dialogue with others
within a group, debate and express own opinions, give
own contribution in finding and organizing resources
necessary to reach a collective objective
•
Ease the availability to check individual and group
attitudes upsetting the harmony of a democratic
cohabitation
SCIENCES
•
Recognize body signals announcing the overcoming of an
emotive reaction
•
Identify the neuro-vegetative aspects linked to the
emotions
•
Consciousness of thoughts related to emotional statuses
(meta-emotive abilities).
MUSIC
•
Identify and recognize environmental and natural sounds
generating emotions
•
Analyze emotions generated by listening to songs
•
Analyze emotions generated by specific rhythms, tones
and intensities
•
Generate sounds able to induce particular moods
GYMNASTIC
•
Identify postures and gestures related to particular moods
•
Express moods through own body
•
Relaxing techniques as a way to attenuate negative
reactions related to deep emotions
ARTS AND DRAWING
•
Recognize elements denoting an emotion within a picture
•
Manipulate an image in order to modify its emotive
content
•
Identify the emotions of an image starting from chromatic
compositions
•
Creatively, personally and operatively express emotions
through: particular techniques of coloring, use of various
materials, manipulation and modeling activities
Activities for primary school, I – II
– III classes
• Starting primary school, a child develops
sufficient cognitive abilities to follow more
complex subjects related to emotional
education
• As much as children improve their ability
to recognize different kinds of emotions,
they should be supported in understanding
that some of them are pleasant while other
are unpleasant
Pleasant and unpleasant
emotions
Objective
• Make children recognize what makes an emotion pleasant or unpleasant
Useful tools
• Pack of emotions card (following slide)
Procedure
• Children are subdivided into two teams and the cards are casually
distributed between the two teams. Each team in turn chooses a card and
shows it to the opposite team; the latter will have to decide whether that
emotion is pleasant or unpleasant, ad then describe a situation in which a
child may feel that particular emotion. If both the questions are answered
properly, the team owns 2 points, if one question is answered, only 1 point.
Once that all the cards have been used, scores are counted and the winner
team is defined.
Reflection points
• Children may be asked to explain the physical sensations felt in
concomitance to some emotions. Children will be invited to notice that the
same sensations may be felt in case of opposite emotions; e.g. strong
heartbeat happens in case of fear but also of happiness.
Activities for secondary school
• Adolescents may not easily recognize their own emotions. They
often can not identify and name what they feel; for instance, anger
may be confused with sadness, or irritation may be defined as
anger.
• First of all, it is important to provide them with tools for
understanding emotions’ origin and characteristics, because often a
mood, especially if negative, may overpower.
• Enhancing the abilities of emotions management favors the
possibility to modify negative moods, and to live own emotions in a
more functional way.
• Rarely adolescents receive a socio-affective education.
• The activity proposed is addressed to students attending the first
two years of secondary school, and it aims to make them learn the
emotional competencies useful to face the problems they will likely
live
Me and my emotions
Objectives
•
•
To understand the origins of personal emotions
To learn how to modify personal thoughts so as to modify emotions
Necessary material
•
•
6 cards, each indicating an emotion, like the following ones
Sheets and pens for each group of 3 pupils
ANGRY
ANXIOUS
PROUD
SATISFIED
GUILTY
UNHAPPY
Procedure
•
•
Create groups of 3 pupils each, and give to every group a copy of the 6 cards and a list of
situations. Ask pupils to choose a secretary whose task will be to take notes of the outputs of the
team work, and to read them to the rest of the class.
Ask pupils to debate and agree on an emotion they believe they would feel in the event described
by each situation.
Me and my emotions
List of situations
•
You quarrelled with a friend and you told him things that you don’t think about him
•
You have been elected as the representative of your class
•
Your parents promised you a beautiful holiday
•
You got a low mark in English
•
Your brother related to your parents something that you have made
•
You have a very important test for your final evaluation
•
A friend asked you to go out together, but he forgot to inform you that he had another engagement
•
You were punished because you didn’t help your father
•
Your coach congratulated you because of your performance
•
While you are with your friends, you stumble and all the others laugh
•
Entering your classroom, one of your friends don’t say hello to you and turns to the opposite side
•
Your parents ask you to engage at school better than you do
Phase 2
•
After team working, ask the representative the emotion associated to each situation. Check if
other groups wrote something different, asking the reasons leading to a choice instead of another.
Me and my emotions
Starting points for discussion:
• Ask the pupils about their opinions on why the people can have different
emotions in front of the same situation.
• Can the thoughts which the people have be in some way connected to an
emotion?
• Explain to the pupils in which way we have to apply to ourselves, the
thoughts which we express cause the sensations we prove. For example,
not everyone can have the same reaction while is chosen as players of
volleyball. There can be someone who is proud of him/herself and thinks
that it is an important role and to take a part of the team will make him/her
know lot of people. Somebody else, instead, can be anxious because thinks
to not to be good enough in this game and now should be more involved as
the other players. And there can be another one, who is sad because thinks
that will have to train a lot after school and will not have enough time for
his/her friends.
• To learn how to change own thoughts is demanding, but have a lot of utility
because helps to reconsider the intensity with which the emotions are lived
and to manage them in a better way.
Intensive course against the
bullying
• The aim of this activity is to develop in
participants the emotional communication, the
capability to cooperate and to create united
groups of mutual support.
• This activity foresee that, inside a class, there
should be carried out 4 meetings - each of 3
hours, for the total of 12 intensive hours. The
program foresee that these 4 meetings should
be carried out within 4 following days, to
maintain the continuity and to not “broke”
created atmosphere.
First meeting
•
•
•
•
•
Game to know each other: everyone (included researchers) has to present the person on his/her
right, to give a physical description and underline most distinctive features. Afterwards everyone
thinks on the presentation and says in what agrees and in what doesn’t agree. The aim is to
create an open atmosphere in which everyone thinks and reflects on the others, to listen the
impression which the others have on oneself, but remember also that these are “opinions” and so
these “opinions” can be discordant and relative.
“Magic wand”: all participants, one by one, says what he/she would like to change in the person
sitting on her/his right (behaviours, attitudes, physical features). Everyone says if agree on
opinions about oneself, and if yes, believes to be able to change those aspects.
Introduction to bullying phenomenon, theory explanation and connection with the course which is
contemporaneously carried. Brainstorming on the bullying concept. Explanation of intervention’s
aims.
“Photo – language”: on some desks there are exposed the photos related to mostly desperate
images, not necessary connected with the bullying. The participants have to look at them carefully.
Everyone has to choose (in mind) a one which, for some reason, response on expectations
connected with the course. Afterwards, the circle of all participants should be formed, everyone
says which photo has chose and why. The researchers will try to focus the activities and following
meetings on basis of expectations expressed by participants.
Debriefing: conclusions on the meeting, group discussion in which everyone should tell the own
emotive status, positive and negative moments, what would like to change in oneself and own
behaviour, and in behaviour of the others.
Second meeting
•
•
•
•
•
•
Comments on previous day. What has not been resolved and should be concluded.
Exercises for developing of affinity inside the group: in the circle, one person starts the
rhythm, for example by clapping hands; other participants, one by one, have to join by
harmonizing with the rhythm with other sounds. The results should be commented.
Exercises for developing the trust inside the group: the self-supported circle; all standing, the
participants form a circle; at a certain call they turn right and bend their knees. If the circle is still
whole and nobody leaves it because afraid of or doesn’t trust, everyone is sitting on knees of the
person behind him/her and support the person in front of him/her. The game should be
commented.
Exercises on self-esteem: everyone says about him/herself three positive things and comments
them. Everybody says about others three positive things. All participants have to think about a
problem which have never confessed and imagine a person from the group to which would like to
confess the secret. Everyone should express the features of the person which has chosen
(without telling the name) and why it is the person adequate to receive the secret. The features
are written on the blackboard and there are commented positive sides of participants of this
course.
The network of hands: another exercise to develop the cooperation and support within the
group. Starting from various positions, but standing and with closed eyes, and keeping the left
hand down and behind oneself and the right hand above own head. Everyone walks in this
position toward the centre and join the own right hand with the right hand of another person, and
the left hand with the left hand of another person. Everybody opens eyes and discovers that a
chaotic network of hand is created. All persons should try to untie the network but with hands
always united. Also in this case, if the trust and the participation are maintained, the participants
should form a circle with hands united.
Debriefing: conclusions on the meeting, group discussion in which every one should tell the own
emotive status, positive and negative moments, what would like to change in oneself and own
behaviour, and in behaviour of the others.
Third meeting
•
•
Comments on previous day. What has not been resolved and should be concluded.
Assertiveness: the capability to answer to aggressions without violence but not also passive. Pair
exercises trough simulations.
•
Communication: simulation of different forms of active listening and discussion and reflection.
•
“Today I’ve discovered that…”: final comment on others’ behaviour. Everybody has to declare
what positive has noticed in a person with who normally has not relationship or has difficult
relationship.
•
The six hair to thing: exercise on conflicts resolution with use of theory based on a series of
attitudes typologies in front of life experiences (identified as 6 hair of different colors) which go
from optimistic and positive to critical and pessimistic and pass through creative, objective and
rational, passionate and emotive and organized and synthetic. Exercise on use of hair: which one
I use often, which one rarely, which one better? In the last conflict, which I dressed? Were they
functional? Which other hair I could dress to obtain a better resolution of that situation?
•
Debriefing: an emotion to define the meeting.
Fourth meeting
• Comments on previous day. What has not been resolved and
should be concluded.
• Peer support. What is a group of mutual support. Everybody writes
a card in which says in what he/she would like to be helped by the
rest of the class. The card are red and emerged problems are
written on the blackboard. Everybody says in what and how could be
useful to others.
• The nature of confidences inside of mutual support group:
which are ethic limits of a person who receive a confidence? What I
wouldn’t like to receive as a confidence, because I wouldn’t know
how to manage it? Everybody, in group discussion, discloses the
own hypothetical difficulty as a possible confident. Through
simulations referred to those situations the group try to find a
possible way to manage the problem and to support the other.
• Debriefing: an emotion to define the meeting.
8. Setting up of local partnerships
for prevention and combating
against peer violence
Method used – agreements,
networks, pacts, actors, institutions
and involved organizations
A culture of dialogue
•
•
To develop the culture of dialogue is fundamental that also “actors” external to
didactic education and parent education are interested in the problem.
Especially those containers which produce messages and participation, as for
example a cinema, a radio, a television, a publishing; but also tools of
communication different, as Internet, videogames and all those moments of
aggregation, education and debate, as assemblies in schools, conferences
and public debates.
Courses of culture of dialogue
Radio and tv
Videogames
Publishing
Internet
Cinema
Courses of culture of dialogue
•
•
Each course, in which the culture of dialogue can be developed, have to work to
reach own objectives. Each course have to aim to reach those institutional and
educational objectives which for their features, structure, means and finalities
are more directly of their competency. In particular, those modern tools have a
great diffusion among young people, as for example, videogames, should take
care of maximal attention to just existing mechanisms, as for example P.E.G.I.
(Pan European Game Information) as an indicator of minimal age in which
videogames can be used.
Each of these containers and actors of culture of dialogue are projected toward
these objectives, the culture of legality becomes a natural consequence of their
correct utilization.
Toward common objectives
A synergic work of these subjects that develop the culture of dialogue should
aim to following precise and delineated actions and common objectives:
•
•
•
•
•
Awaken the public opinion on the relevancy of phenomenon
Favour the valorisation of attitudes of civil society
Awake the public opinion on problems and on consequences of moral and
physical violence, as well as authors of bullying and their victims
Create an educational relationship with Media and technological tools in the
way they do not give a message conflicting with the aim of dialogue, civil
society and legality; the communication should not to mask the violence, but
do not have to exalt it nor promote it
Promote the education to the legality with use of tools of “proximity police”
and all initiatives which promote citizen’s approaching to institutions for a
concrete sustainable security.
The Lazio Region
• The total contribution with which the Council Department
of Lazio Region for the Security has financed the
projects interventions against scholastic bullying
amounts over 1 million and 200 thousands of euros.
“These are the projects through which interested
Municipalities and Municipality Unions intend to develop
a system of protection which foresee social initiatives,
predisposed to collaborate with scholastic institutes,
Local Sanitary Units, Police, social cooperatives and with
parents with the aim to diffuse the culture of legality and
respect”.
The network of scholastic institutes:
research-action project
•
•
•
The purpose of the project is to experiment
the activity of prevention to the scholastic
discomfort, starting from the survey related
to how the students perceive the
phenomenon of violence, and to promote an
intervention of peer support by developing in
them, through the specific training, the
capability to mediate the conflicts and to
facilitate negotiated solution satisfying for all
parts.
This experience (from September 2001 to
June 2003) has involved 9 institutes, 18
classes, 359 students and 40 teachers.
The network of schools has been
considered just from the beginning a basic
resource for the project, and has been
managed with taking care of:
- sharing of objectives and methodologies,
- identification of the pathway and
indicators of results
- decisions on responsibilities and roles,
- agreement on actions, modalities and
schedule
- in itinere and final confrontation.
Intervention
Target
Awareness raising about the problem of
violence, about the value of mutual help
and about curriculum opportunities for all
teachers members of network, with aim to
favor the creation of sensible contexts
able to support the initiative
Institutional
and not
institutional
subjects
Studying in deepen of methodology and
presentation of tools to be adopted
Teachers
and project
managers
Training and education with pupils
(groups) to develop the capability of
support and mediation between peers
Pupils and
parents
Verification of changes happened in
class through (1) direct observation of
behaviors registered by teacher in diary
de board and (2) comparative analysis of
questionnaire’s results “My life in the
school” by Sharp and Smith
Pupils
Anti – bullying free phone
number
•
•
•
Within the campaign for the fight against the bullying “dampen the bully” there has been constituted the free phone
number 800 66 96 96. The qualified operators provide information on the phenomenon and suggest possible
behaviours in critical situations.
The task force of anti – bullying number is constituted by psychologists, teachers, parents and ministerial
personnel. The number is active from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
In the completely anonymous way there are kept records of problems and denunciations only with the aim to
update the database which is the source for data survey and the tool for reflections.
First results
•
To 10 listening positions created by Ministry of Public Education there are arrived, in first 6 weeks, about 4400
calls, 120 per day form the beginning of February to the end of March.
•
The biggest number of calls came from:
► 37,5% - parents or family of individual sustained acts of bullying;
► 31,4% teachers;
► 23,2% students, victims of bullying.
•
The biggest number of calls comes from secondary schools (35%), then from primary schools (25%), from high
schools (19%), from technical-professional high schools (15%) and from nursery schools (5%).
Reason of the call
About the 69% of calls inform against arrogant behaviours, violence and isolated episodes, while the 31% is for
information.
Who are the victims
Victims are boys and girls who are perceived as vulnerable because of some psychological characteristics
(shyness, have few friends, have good educational performance), psycho-physical characteristics (physical
handicap, mental retardation), psycho-pathologic characteristics (problems of autism, other) and social
characteristics (wear not branded, join the class group during the educational path).
Permanent Regional Observatory
on Bullying
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
By each regional scholastic Office there are permanent regional observatories on the phenomenon of bullying
constituted though special fund assigned by the Ministry of Public Education. Each observatory is a poli-functional
centre of services directed to scholastic institutions which operate, also as a network, on the territory.
The regional observatories work in the near connection with central and peripheral administration, and in
collaboration with different educational agencies present on the territory, for the realization of activities concerning
the collection of best practices, materials and competences which in these years have been developed thanks to
the care of schools, local institutions (Regions, Universities, Local Sanitary Units, Municipalities, Provinces,….)
and associations.
The priorities of observatories there is the involvement of institutions just active within the problem, as well as the
collection and valorisation of researches, experiences, didactic materials and identification of specific
competences.
The observatories guarantee the surveying and constant monitoring of the phenomenon, as well as the support to
the activities promoted by scholastic institutions singularly or in collaboration with other structures which operate
on the territory. The observatories guarantee, moreover, the connection with different institutions which, at the
national level, work in field of legal education.
The internet website (www.smontailbullo.it) is the “place” of connection between involved institutions and persons.
Inside of each observatory there is the monitoring and verification of intervention unit.
The operative strategies which will be adopted by observatories will be modulated on four levels:
- prevention and fight against bullying, actuated by an active involvement of all components of scholastic realities
and through intervention programs which answer to the exigencies of specific territorial contexts;
- promotion of educational pathways to the legality through curricular and extracurricular activities;
- constant monitoring of the phenomenon of bullying;
- monitoring and in itinere and final verification of activities carried out by various involved subjects, also through
the collection of reports on activities carried out, and activities proposed to be carried out, coming from schools.
The observatories take care and favour the promotion and monitoring of info-training pathways and updating
addressed to different components of scholastic community.
In the annual directive on education E. F. 2007 is, as the priority, the activity of training of all school personnel
within the prevention and fight against bullying.