In June 2015, primary school teachers from 5 different Bulgarian towns entered a workshop for early prevention of hate speech and discrimination through interactive methods of teaching the school curriculum.
The mass and free access to the internet and social media is a window towards a world of people different from us, but also towards a world full of hate speech and discrimination, which the youngest users of the Internet stumble upon all of the time. In order to counteract the negative effects of such Internet content and to promote the positive use of the Web, the Applied Research and Communications fund, in partnership with primary school counselling experts, developed an interactive methodology “Children, parents and teachers against hate speech and discrimination” for developing social and cultural skills in children and their families. In the foundation of the methodology lies the belief, that the compulsory school curriculum, when presented with interactive methods for inclusion, can successfully develop children’s necessary skills for tolerance and acceptance of adversity, as something valuable and useful for society.
In the workshop, dedicated to the methodology, which was held at the end of June, over 20 primary school teachers from Sofia, Stara Zagora, Pernik, Botevgrad and Nova Zagora voluntarily entered the testing and impact assessment of the interactive lessons on the skills of students and the mindsets of their families. The new element at the training was the breaking up of the method lecturer-attendant. The project team, financed by EEA Grants and the Support Programme for NGOs in Bulgaria, the teachers from the expert group and newly joint counselling experts broke up the traditional roles and entered the workshop equally as lecturers and participants in the process of teaching and exchange of experience. The participants demonstrated leading qualities and deep commitment to their teaching profession.
At the end of the training, the participants gathered around the position that the support and qualification of teachers for actively involving the entire school community in the educational process must become a focus of education, in order to increase the motivation of the pupils to develop their own skills in a digital, multicultural society.
