School, cases of violence also increase in the Brescia area

The episode in Abbiategrasso, where a teacher was wounded with a knife by a student, is particularly serious but assaults and violence also took place in schools in Brescia. There was the teacher who ended up in the emergency room a few days ago, pushed to the ground by a pupil, there was the boy who was suspended because he had arrived at school with a pellet gun, there was even the case of the teacher who chased two students with a baseball bat.

«A lack of inhibitory brakes on both sides, obviously in different percentages – observes the director of the territorial school office Giuseppe Bonelli -. From mid-May onwards, with the heat, the stress from the end of the school year, the last checks, the tension tends to increase, as does the quarrelsomeness». Obviously, the problem isn’t just the time of year and Bonelli is well aware of this: «Yes, we have an increase in violence and tension in schools: if before they felt weak in a world of strong people, kids have now discovered that they are weak in a world of weak.

Minister Valditara has relaunched the proposal of the psychologist at school, a figure that actually already exists in numerous institutes, even if the result of specific projects and different sensitivities: «With the second year of Covid, the resources dedicated to these projects had been increased, which otherwise could only be financed with the institute fund or with voluntary contributions – recalls Bonelli -, then with the return to the post Covid ordinary they started cutting again. Having said this, we must also remember that the psychologist at school is not a psychologist, he gives a horizon of therapeutic possibilities».

The theme is also economic: demand is increasing, awareness is growing, but thinking of having a psychologist who carries out therapeutic activities for dozens of children in every school is unthinkable. «The psychologist at school serves to make people understand the need – underlines Bonelli -. Then, however, we talk about the welfare system to offer a therapeutic path to those who need it but cannot afford it». Why yes, in practice, a therapeutic path means 300 or 400 euros per month for each student, or even more. In short, figures that are anything but trivial.

«Il discomfort is more evident today, also because the forms of general containment have disappeared – notes Bonelli -: parishes, clubs, associations, factories, places where there was a shared horizon. The same families always had an aunt who was a teacher or a nun in whom the boy could confide».

And so what? «Yes to the psychologist, but also to one working dimension that allows this job to be done with attention to the person and not just to the anxiety of the program, checks, bureaucracy. Only in this way can an educational proposal be built on the student’s needs. Because the important thing is to get aware citizens out of school, then if someone comes out even better. More aware people than people who know how to use the electronic press. Because if you have no idea how it is in the world, you are not doing a good service: not even to the companies themselves».

All this means having teachers with psycho-pedagogical skills and smaller classes: «We have classes of 27 students, but with these numbers everything is more difficult and you don’t even know the boys if you have six classes. Not to mention the substitute teachers: in Brescia, out of 15,000 teachers, we have 4,000 substitute teachers, which means that every year many change schools and pupils». Here, starting from here, from the fundamentals, from who goes to class to do what, from the students who are trained, could already be a good starting point. Together with the psychologist

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