Not just an attack, but a carefully planned performance: the t-shirt with the word “revenge” and the phone around his neck to film everything. The case of the thirteen-year-old who injured his teacher with a knife in the Bergamo area raises questions that go far beyond public order, touching the heart of adult responsibility and the digital drift of very young people.
When it comes to education and digital, Carolina Foundation he is always at the forefront to find solutions that can help children in difficulty. Ivano Zoppi, of the Carolina Foundation, warns us against confusing the speed of punishment with the effectiveness of re-education.
«I share the urgency expressed by Minister Valditara: rapid and concrete responses are needed. But be careful not to confuse the speed of the response with its effectiveness. Stricter rules on the spread of weapons among minors are appropriate, but they cannot be the only — nor the main — response to what happened today. A thirteen year old boy who shows up at school with a knife, a t-shirt with the word “revenge” written on it and a phone around his neck to film his own attack is not a problem of public order. It is the sign of an educational failure that comes from afar — a failure that affects all of us.”
And he continues: «The Minister rightly referred to the issue of psychological assistance in schools. Fine, but with which model? With what resources? And above all: with what continuity? We cannot continue to call on the school psychologist the day after the tragedy and forget about it the following week. We need stable educational facilities, trained adults present in the children’s daily lives – not emergency interventions after the fact.”
Then there is an element «that deserves deep reflection: this boy didn’t just plan an attack, he staged it. The t-shirt, the military trousers, the phone to record everything. It is the grammar of social media, the logic of violent performance as spectacle. It is not an isolated case: it is the symptom of a digital culture that normalizes violence as content. On this front, as the Carolina Foundation we have been repeating it for years: without a structural digital education strategy and without serious involvement of the platforms, we will continue to intervene only later, only too late”.
Finally, a necessary note: «this boy is thirteen years old and is not attributable. It will not be so even with new rules, if these are not accompanied by real paths of taking charge, restorative justice and early intervention. Punishment without education protects no one — neither the victims nor the children who commit these acts.”
