04 May 2024 8.30pm
Once again we find ourselves faced with a dramatic and painful event which involved, this time, two young students from a high school in Reggio Calabria.
The attack, which culminated in the stabbing of one of the two fifteen-year-olds, leaves us dismayed and dumbfounded, but calls each of us to start a serious, non-emotional and responsible reflection.
From the first moments on social media there was a swarm of invectives and disclaimers, but as education professionals, as pedagogues who have been engaged in listening and educational action for over 30 years, we believe that this attitude does not help to reach a serious and stable solution to the problem.
Today it is undeniable to see how young people, families, schools and other educational agencies find themselves operating and living in “social islands” that do not communicate with each other and, indeed, sometimes find themselves clashing even harshly, passing on responsibilities and delegating the search for solutions.
This state of affairs leads to the social isolation of our young people who increasingly become the “object” of discussion rather than the “subject” of a constructive and serious discussion.
Today, children’s education is too often left to TikTok videos or various Instagram stories… and parents’ discussions are relegated to Facebook posts in search of an extra like.
Without demonizing these new means of communication which have now entered the daily and relational life of all of us, we believe, however, that the time has come for all of us to stop, stop glaring at each other and return to communicating effectively in order to recreate a society made up of relationships real, constructive discussions and common search for solutions. All this by having the courage to “talk WITH young people” and not talk ABOUT young people.
The ANPE (National Association of Italian Pedagogists) from now on, as always, makes itself available with its professionals to participate in actions useful for achieving a renewed and positive “educational normalization” thanks to which each of the educational agencies, today severely affected by this latest tragic event, returns to regain possession of its full social role.
