, it’s like saying to them: keep doing what you’re doing,” Ivan points out.
These are not just his theoretical reflections. Experts, lawyers, activists, protesters have already said that this will lead to the normalization and increase of aggression against children who are considered “different”.
The National Children’s Network noted that the legal changes “deny the existence of an entire group of children, directly violating both their rights and the right of every child to live free from violence.”
Moreover, the organization recalled that in Bulgaria over a third of children reported being subjected to humiliation and insults at school (UNICEF, 2021). Against this background, “denying the existence of an entire group of children and imposing intolerance and non-acceptance towards them will lead to an increase in cases of violence, suicide and self-harm, without even being able to assess the damage to the psyche of all children,” the NMD said.
All this creates many concerns for Ivan – personal, but also for the future of Bulgarian education in general.
He’s not sure if he sees himself as a teacher in a similar, and possibly even more hostile, environment. According to him, the now imposed ban is probably only the first step of even more
anti-democratic measures on the model of Russia and Hungary , from where the “Revival” law was inspired .
“What worries me is that I don’t know what to expect. Because every single person has a threshold of tolerance,” says the 34-year-old teacher.
“If more things start to happen, more restrictions, it is possible that I will start thinking about emigrating. I have thought about it before, but here they are already hitting me very personally – me and the field in which I am developing,” he adds.
However, his other concern is generally related to the development of education in the country. By definition, school is the place where children must learn to think and think critically – therefore there should be no taboo topics, but multiple points of view.
However, with the ban on “propaganda” on LGBT topics, the exact opposite is happening. According to Ivan, anti-democratic parties like “Vazrazhdane” have long preached ideas like this about a “correct” textbook by subject, about a single point of view, and this direction is frightening.
“For me, the main purpose of the school is to provoke you. It’s not to tell you what to think,” notes Ivan.
by Damiana Veleva
Damiana Veleva has been a journalist in Free Europe since 2021. She graduated from the University of Heidelberg and the Free University of Berlin.
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