Educating about differences

Is school (still) a safe space? What is happening in our classrooms?
Do you know that feeling when you walk into a classroom and feel like you can be 100% yourself? Today, Italian schools are changing, and there is a lot of talk about teenagers, but often without really investing in their desires and needs. An adult-centred perspective oversimplifies the complexity of adolescent lives. For young people, school is not just a place of tests and grades; it is also where they learn how to feel comfortable with others and feel welcomed, where they can explore their identity, ask questions without fear, and talk about consent, bodies and how to build relationships. Comprehensive sex and relationship education is not a luxury, but a fundamental right for every student.

How can school shift from being a space for growth to becoming a territory of exclusion?
School becomes a place of distress when, instead of validating differences, it leaves young people alone to face the fear of judgement or invisibility. When there are no words to express who we are and no spaces for listening, classrooms become cages of isolation. School wellbeing cannot be measured by grades, but by the possibility of walking through the corridors without having to wear a mask in order to be accepted.

The Valditara Bill becomes law. What impact does it have on students’ autonomy?
If a family decides to withhold consent out of fear or prejudice, some students lose the opportunity to engage with crucial issues. Those growing up in environments where certain topics are considered taboo will be left without protection, precisely where school intervention would be most urgent in preventing gender-based violence and violence against LGBTQIA+ people. Young people living in disadvantaged areas may not even find at school a space for opportunity and knowledge: there is a risk of leaving them in the same starting conditions, without offering new opportunities and thereby deepening inequalities.

How does “Educare alle differenze” respond to these new regulatory restrictions and continue to build safer spaces?
We will continue to build “safer spaces” that embrace complexity without moralising; to provide teachers, students and families with tools to deconstruct stereotypes and to protect freedom of teaching. We will open up questions rather than close down conversations. Keeping schools secular and open means defending them as places where no life is made invisible.