The National Event for Training Teachers on Changing Social and Gender Norms around Violence in Schools, organized within the REVIS (Responding to Peer Violence among Children in Schools and Adjacent Settings) project took place on 1–3 September 2021, in Craiova (Romania). The event was organised by the Terre des Hommes Foundation Romania, and was attended by 20 teachers representing 10 vocational high schools in Romania, under the guidance of 2 trainers with solid expertise in the area.
Mrs. Cristina Rigman, a REVIS trainer, kindly agreed to share her views on the training.
Based on your experience, what forms of violence usually appear among pupils in Romania?
- Pupils engage in various forms of violence, mainly physical violence, verbal violence, psychological abuse, verbal abuse (the so-called nicknames that they call each other), and there are even signs of sexual harassment among teenagers.
How can we encourage children to talk and ask for help when they experience violence? Who can they reach out to for help?
– Children can talk to the class master, teachers, school counsellor, even school medical office and parents.
If we have a trusting relationship with children, they will be open to talk to us. What keeps them silent is the adults’ reaction, the way in which we underestimate the problems that are very important to them. If we do this with minor things, when it comes to serious issues, they will not trust us anymore, they will not ask for our help.
Another aspect is the adults’ attitude towards mistakes. Our children are afraid to make mistakes. When children make mistakes, the adults get angry, punish them, and overreact. Therefore, when the child is aware he made a mistake, he will not tell us in order to avoid the adult's anger.
In order to stop violence in schools, is it necessary to change some social and gender norms? How do you see this change? How can it be implemented in Romanian schools? Who would be the main actors?
- For a long time, I thought that if we change a norm, a regulation, a law, it is enough. Practice shows that it is not so. In time, I understood that change has to start at an individual level, and this implies long-term work.
Parents also need education in this respect. We get training for all sorts of jobs, but nobody teaches us how to raise our children. When we are parents, it is difficult to find the right balance between too much care and too little.
Teachers need to know not only the subjects they teach, but also child psychology. When becoming adolescents, children go through various transformations, and we have to be aware of and know how to approach these issues.
We should inspire children's respect for general values by modeling these values ourselves, because they do at school what they see at home, and the other way round. Therefore, it is necessary to enact changes at the individual level, by means of personal example.
How will teachers use the information they receive at this training?
- We have a very diverse group of teachers, and many are familiar with what we teach here. We equip them with additional methods and knowledge to work with children.
We raise questions and plant seeds so that their work with children will bear fruit.
Some participants have said: "I feel that my place is here. I feel that this training will help me personally". What we do helps them exceed their limits, ask questions of themselves, transform themselves as people and teachers.
We, the trainers, keep in touch with participants, mentor and support them, and they may ask for our help even after completing this training.
Teachers must be prepared for any situation. Children and teenagers are more daring; they do not have as many taboos as adults. They will raise some issues that might prove challenging, and teachers must be prepared to face them.
We hope that teachers will manage spark a change in children’s minds through the activities they will perform along with the children.
We speak about the creation of a safe, child-friendly space in schools. What is the teachers’ role in this? What about the parents’ role?
- On the one hand, I think parents should trust teachers, as the latter do their best to keep children safe at school. On the other hand, there should be good communication between teachers and parents, because the child brings to school what he experiences at home. A child may have a violent outburst and we may not know the cause. The parents’ role is very important. When the child has behavioural problems, the parents may be partially the cause. The negative attitudes of parents, even if unintentional, can influence the child.
Do you have a message for teachers, with regard to preventing violence in schools?
- A teacher does more than provide information, they are a second parent. During classes the teacher supplements the first seven years of the education provided by the family. Teachers have a responsibility to pupils grading them. They must help them strengthen their self-confidence, develop their abilities, and help and understand them. If such a relationship is created, mutual respect is enhanced and violence can be reduced.
A message for organisers?
- The information that we deliver at these courses can be very useful for many adults. Therefore, I would suggest organising shorter modules, maybe 2–3 hour courses, in cooperation with the Teacher Resource Centre or Ministry of Education. This should be done for more teachers and kindergarten educators, and trigger a change in more people, because behaviour and positive norms start to develop at a young age. Also, this kind of training could be organised for parents online.
Co-funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union (2014–2020)