Author: Chiara Gullotta (Amnesty International Italy)
On November 30th and December 1st 2021, a new part of the KID_ACTIONS Project took place. Two co-creation sessions were organized in Trento (IT) with a group of teachers from many different regions of Italy. In the co-creation sessions, the educators and the partners discussed the findings of the KID_ACTIONS project, tried out the materials, activities and tools that are in development to be included in the KID_ACTIONS educational toolkit.
This first session hosted a group of 17 teachers coming from the following regions of Italy: Trentino Alto-Adige, Lombardia, Abruzzo and Puglia. The teachers were supported and guided by members of the partner organization: trainers from Amnesty International, developers from the Bruno Kessler Foundation, the Provincia Autonoma of Trento and the experts from European Schoolnet.
These meetings constituted an exceptional occasion to exchange views on the core values and aims of the KID_ACTIONS project. In fact, in order to create a toolkit that is not only effective but also tailored to the educators’ needs, it was important to confront them while the creators are in the development phase.
The first session took place in the afternoon of the 30th of November. Teachers were asked what situations related to cyberbullying they face in schools. This grounding activity reported a diverse situation. From the feedback of the teachers, it was clear that some schools were already building up the capacity to face the phenomena of cyberbullying, meanwhile, others struggled to even detect cyberbullying cases.
The discussion was then followed by the needs they have as teachers, educators and part of school institutions. As it emerged, one of the common needs is to provide teachers and schools with activities and strategies that can allow unknown cases of cyberbullying to become known and, eventually, possible to deal with. Teachers were in fact agreeing that each of the schools needed a stronger prevention policy and they particularly appreciated some of the experiences shared in the Forum that took place the days before, like the Anti-Bullying Ambassador program presented by Alex Holmes, CEO of the Diana Award.
On the second session, the 1st of December, teachers and partners had the chance to set a common ground on several matters. Using the tools developed by the Bruno Kessler Foundation, the teachers confronted each other with fundamental questions related to the development of a tool that aims to tackle cyberbullying. ‘Are schools responsible for bullying actions that happen outside the school grounds?” “Do the students understand the importance of language?” “Do we, as teachers, have a deep enough understanding of the digital world lived by the youth?”.
Afterwards, based on the shared understanding derived from posing these questions, teachers were asked to test and give feedback on several activities that will be included in the KID_ACTIONS toolkit. They debriefed in the presence of the experts, giving some valuable feedback on, among others, the timing, terminology, and age-appropriateness of the educational toolkit activities that will be used in the next phases of developing the toolkit.