THE First grade children work together on a drawing. They didn’t choose each other but they have to collaborate, because everyone makes a piece of it. Second graders travel to the land of emotions, marking on a template where they feel them, explaining why and how they feel them. In third grade we move on to conflict mediation, we learn to accept a “no”. At the Pestalozzi City School of Florence the affective education project has been part of the curriculum since the early 2000s.
There were no outcry, no movement for anything in the square with signs. It’s done, it works, the children are at peace. It seems like little but in a country where for decades the introduction of sexual and emotional education in schools has been discussed without success, where many legislative proposals, UN guidelines and expert panels have ended up in the bin, it is a lot. And in these days of pain and anger over the killing of a girl who could have been our daughter, for the 105th femicide of the year (but as we write we are already at the 106th), it is worth talking about it again.
To prevent gender violence, change must be structural. School is not enough, of course. But it can make an important contribution.According to the latest report from the Durex Youth and Sexuality Observatory, 94 percent of children aged between 11 and 24 would like sexual education included in school curricula.No one listens to them.But where to start, if not from training?
Students in the square in Bologna to remember Giulia Cecchettin, 22 years old, the 105th victim of femicide in our country. Photo by Michele Lapini
Affective education: Pope Francis is also in favor
The plan of the Minister of Education and Merit Giuseppe Valditara to educate in relationships includes 30 optional extracurricular hours in which the children, with the moderation of a teacher, will organize themselves into discussion groups. We start in September with high school, for an investment of 15 million euros, then we’ll see. A first step, perhaps, even if for now little is known about the contents.
Meanwhile at the Pestalozzi City School all the children, aged 6 to 14, work on these topics for one hour a week. In fifth grade, when science deals with the reproductive system, we talk about sexual education and gender differences. In middle school the focus is on social media and transgressions, in third grade orientation towards high school, who I am and what I want to become. «The objectives are to develop assertiveness, empathy, respect oneself and others, knowing how to say “I like it and I don’t like it”, accept a refusal» says one of the coordinators, Matteo Bianchini. «With parents you need transparency and trust. We are on the same side, let’s make sure that boys and girls grow up peacefully.”
The first proposal dates back to the seventies
In Italy, the first law proposal for the introduction of sexual education in schools dates back to the mid-1970s. In 1980 Tina Anselmi thought about it, for her the matter did not concern the private sphere but society. Letizia Moratti returned to it with her reform in 2003, then Matteo Renzi with the Buona Scuola. In 2019 even Pope Francis underlined that “sexual education must be given in schools, sex is a gift from God”. The latest, in chronological order, is the one presented by the Honorable Stefania Ascari, of the 5 Star Movement: «If we don’t interrupt this chain of the inability to love, we will always be one less» he says.
«Sexual health is not a whim, but a right recognized by the World Health Organization. Today kids are not capable of real relationships and this proposal of mine focuses precisely on education in affectivity, knowing how to recognize feelings, managing waste, fighting gender prejudices. And we want to involve families. The majority called it rubbish, but in this way they lost contact with reality». The Ascari proposal envisages entrusting teaching to teachers in the classroom, while in a neutral space the children should meet with experts, psychologists, the postal police and the Third Sector.
Another image of the Bologna march against gender violence. Photo by Michele Lapini.
Meetings in clinics
A model not far from that of W Lovethe project for eighth grade students that has been going on in Emilia Romagna for ten yearspromoted by the Region with the Bologna Local Health Authority. Here too, as at Pestalozzi, it is the teachers, previously trained, who carry out emotional and sexual education in the classes: «They are the ones who know the kids, and know how to talk about it, using a participatory method” says Paola Marmocchi, who followed the project for years and reported on it in Emotional and sexual education courses for pre-adolescents (Erickson). «The last meeting, however, takes place with the experts in the Youth Spaces of the clinics, in order to introduce the children to these services which they can access freely. In parallel, we offer parents a shorter series of meetings. For those who do not participate, the school offers alternative activities. We have always worked even with those who have different opinions». From this year W Love it expands and enters the fourth and fifth classes of primary school.
But how can sexual and emotional education help prevent gender violence? Clarifies Rossella Ghigi, professor of Sociology of the family and gender differences at the University of Bologna, author of Make the difference. Gender education from early childhood to adulthood (the Mill): «There is a now consolidated framework of studies and practices to prevent gender violence. Among these is sex education and Italy, as a signatory in 2013 of the Istanbul Convention on the fight against violence against women, has committed to implementing it, something it has never done. The cultural basis on which violence is based – from everyday violence to feminicides – is patriarchal culture, that is, a vision of the world that entrusts men with the control of others, with a precise hierarchy between the sexes. The prejudice is not of the individual, but of the system.
We need to get to the emotions
«To work against gender violence, information is not enough but we need to get to the emotions, being able to wear new glasses with which to see reality. Projects that focus on experience and that hit you in the gut work in schools. Only in this way will we no longer have cases like Caivano and tragedies like Giulia’s. Today we say yes to affective education, without talking about gender. But we cannot ask for respect for women if we do not question the causes of this lack. If a relationship is toxic, if there is a sense of possession in the male, it is a gender issue».
In addition to gender, the other word that remains only in the background in discussions these days is sexuality. We go around it, we refer to feelings and affections in a generic way. Yet until a few years ago it was not a taboo. «We have just launched an appeal to resume the adaptation of the World Health Organization guidelines, which recommend starting early with sexual education by involving families» says Antonella Spolaor Dentamaro, vice-president of theAied, an association that has just turned 70. «In 2015, the Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin set up a table with us, the Fiss, the Italian Federation of scientific sexology, and Christian organisations; we worked in perfect harmony. Why not start from there?
Teens don’t talk about sex with their parents
«It’s not true that sexuality is talked about in the family.In the latest report from the Durex Observatory, only 9 percent of children say they discuss this issue with their parents. When we deal with sexual happiness, we prevent gender violence.” As for the Valditara plan, the opinion of the vice-president Aied is lapidary: “It seems like a school of etiquette.”
While waiting for sexual and emotional education to become part of the curriculum as it has been for some time in almost all European countries (the exception being, in addition to Italy, only Cyprus, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania), schools are moving forward. Ongoing projects there are many, including the historical ones of Aied. In Milan, the “A luci accese” program by Durex with Ala Onlus started in October in high schools,with the aim of involving 23 thousand students through interactive workshops and meetings with experts also open to parents and teachers. Otb Foundation has activated the “Never Again” prevention project which, in addition to offering an emergency service and assistance for women in difficulty, promotes meetings bringing the testimony of a victim, Valentina Pitzalis.
There is no ideology but scientific research
In Rome, the Institute of Clinical Sexology intervenes in schools following the “very clear guidelines of the Fiss” says the president Chiara Simonelli, who has a work coming out in January for Erickson Manual of psychology of psychoaffective and sexual development: «We talk about body, identity, emotions, affections. There are families where women don’t count for anything, where couple relationships are possessive, the boys see it and imitate it. They delude themselves into thinking they have everything under control, especially when they are in disarray.”
There is no ideology but a lot of scientific research also behind it EduforIST, a project started in 2019, coordinated by the University of Pisa and financed by the Ministry of Health, carried out in 24 middle schools in Lombardy, Tuscany, Lazio and Puglia, Friuli Venezia-Giulia and Lombardy. We follow the CSE (Comprehensive Sexuality Education) guidelines for extensive sexuality education, with a multidisciplinary approach that also takes into account the emotional growth of children. «The underlying theme of these courses is the free expression of individuality», concludes Ghigi. «But this is also the same objective of the school. What matters is the well-being of the people.”
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