They have the feeling that if they tell things to the teachers it is because they are snitches

BarcelonaIt's break time. A group of secondary students leave the classroom to have some fun, and a few decide to play football. Halfway through the game, the one with the ball, ready to shoot at goal, misses. "You're useless" or "You play like a girl" are some of the comments heard in the background. A series of impressions that, even if let out in a rush without the specific intention of causing harm, take their toll. With a scene like this, Nadia Casanova, a teacher at Col·legi Liceu Castro de la Peña in Barcelona, explains how a case of school bullying can escalate. "The most visual violence is physical aggression, and yet, comments that hurt, especially those directed at self-esteem, are not addressed as much," points out Casanova.

Casanova, who works daily with students in the classroom, points out that situations that end up escalating into bullying more frequently arise from a lack of boundaries when expressing jokes that are normalized among students. "These are comments they see on social media, especially racist, homophobic, sexist, and ultimately, stigma-promoting ones," she highlights, adding that "there is very little awareness of the power of words."

Furthermore, Casanova emphasizes that these comments are particularly common in the playgrounds, when playing competitive games, or during class changes: "At the playground is where they are freer, more impulsive, and this also means they don't filter how they should intervene at a given moment." For this reason, she stresses the importance of working with students on values such as respect or assertive communication before a possible, already consolidated case of school bullying occurs. "It's not only important to act when there's a serious and real incident, but also to make them understand, even before that, that the way they communicate has a consequence on others," says the teacher.

Anonymous accounts on social media

In fact, in a context where almost two students per class suffer bullying –according to data from the ColaCao Foundation and the Complutense University of Madrid–, Casanova is one of the 7,911 teachers in the State who are part of the program Somos Únic@s –it was launched in the 2022-2023 academic year– to train students in bullying prevention. The teacher explains that she has started to be part of it this 2025-2026 academic year, when the program has reached secondary school, with the aim of raising awareness and sensitizing students about harassment. Thus, it represents one of the 102 Catalan schools, which group up to 8,524 students, participating in the project.

Self-esteem, peer pressure, or fear are some of the concepts that are worked on with students through group dynamics and didactic materials, both to express what they think and to raise their voice if they witness a case of bullying

. "Many times they have the feeling that if they tell teachers things it's because they are snitches," explains Casanova, who points out that, on the contrary, "we try to make them understand that when you tell something it's to ask for help".

Furthermore, the teacher highlights that the fact that it is worked on preventively allows focusing not only on harassment, but also on other issues such as conflict resolution in the classroom. Although she does not directly relate it to an increase in conflict, she assures that as a teacher she has detected a greater difficulty in addressing the influences that today's adolescents have. "Before, we didn't find that private and anonymous accounts were created on social media to make offensive comments," explains Casanova as an example.

It is the appearance of these new dynamics that she states may have overwhelmed them on occasion, even though they continue to work on prevention. "It is also true that I believe there is more awareness now, and that makes things explained more than before," she admits. At a time when the sector is strained, coinciding also with the announcement to

deploy plainclothes police officers in fourteen schools and institutes

, Casanova considers it opportune to seek solutions to coexistence problems, but wonders if an authority figure is the best approach. "A few years ago, the figure of the COCOBE began to be promoted to foster emotional well-being, coexistence, and to work on group conflicts, and it was very well thought out," reflects the teacher.