María Rodríguez, originally from Beniel (Murcia) is the President of the Confederation of Students Associations in Spain called CANAE (Confederación Estatal de Asociaciones de Estudiantes). Although she is still 19, she has much experience in the field of student activism, as she got engaged in the Student Association of her high school when she was 13, she worked with FEMAE (Federación Murciana de Asociaciones de Estudiantes) and right now in CANAE. CANAE is an organisation founded in 1987, composed by different Organisations of Students in local and regional level. CANAE is an independent organisation, not linked to any organisation nor political party. The organisation defends students rights and encourages students to get involved in their own education, as active players and not only as passive receivers of a service.

Is there less respect to teachers from students than some years ago?

I don`t think that right now there is less respect to teachers than before. Respect is something that teachers build in the classrooms. As Socrates already said, there are two dimensions of the so-called "respect" to teachers. There is the respect given by his structural position -potestas-, but also the respect that teachers achieve through the way they behave with their students -auctoritas-, i.e. the way they make students feel good during lessons. The first dimension is already-done, but is not enough for teachers to be respected by students, so they must work out the second part of the respect. Only those teachers who achieve both have been respected by their students.

Why are there many non-tolerant youngsters? Who is on charge of  teaching this value, families or school?

The context where you come from, your family, your school and your relationships affect on how tolerant you are; people aren?t born already educated. Education is a process that lasts the whole life and is a task of society in general. Families, schools and civil-society organisations we have an important role on this, therefore the more tolerant and aware of diversity benefits a society is, the most tolerant their people will grow.

Do Counseling Departments, teachers and Jefatura de Estudios have the tools needed to face bullying and to help young people who suffer bullying?

I would rather say that school don`t have enough mechanisms to prevent, to identify and to react against bullying. CANAE claims for more training to teachers and students about emotional intelligence and more tools to understand the psychological dimension of people, in order to be self-aware of their and other people feelings.

Some researches state that the 33% of Spanish students has suffered once bullying. Is this more common than parents and teachers think?

It is true that people is not aware that bullying and hate-speech are a reality in our classrooms, and sometimes we don?t give to this the importance it has. Even students we are not always conscious that we could be damaging people with comments or acts we do without thinking. These data highlight the needing for teacher, parents, and also for students to get aware on how our acts affect other people and to be able to identify what are bullying practices in order to do not reproduce them.

Are social networks amplifying bullying? Are they lawless or can we denounce cyber-bullying?

We don`t have evidence of that. Of course law applies to Internet as well. Maybe more awareness about our rights in the net is needed, that is why in many high schools there are workshops about this topic, to inform about the risk and give some advices.

If a student suffers scholar bullying, what should he or she do? Is silent the worst enemy?

We strongly recommend every victim of bullying to report it as soon as possible. It is reasonable that students feel unsafe about consequences of reporting. There are mechanisms to act when a case is informed. Don´t be afraid and communicate it.

Are youngsters aware of Internet`s danger? Could you give us some advices to keep privacy in social networks?  

I am not an expert in social media but in my view common sense is essential. We have to be conscious that as any other. We shouldn`t publicly publish private information in Facebook or Twitter that we would not tell an unknown person in the street. I recommend carefully checking the safety and privacy settings in our social media and being cautious with them.

What should be the role of students associations in topics as student equality or teachers respect?

Student associations can be a powerful tool to raise awareness among students about their rights and how to defend them. We are the best advocates of our mates` rights. Many associations are today promoting good coexistence among students, teachers and parents at school. We need to bring coexistence and conflict resolution back into the core education policy priorities.

Has CANAE any plan to face scholar bullying? Do the federations of CANAE work on these topics in high schools?

CANAE is for developing comprehensive plans on school coexistence to bring together a learning approach to conflict as part of social interaction, awareness, prevention and protection of victims. Student federations have been developing campaigns against bullying to raise awareness of this issue and to encourage people to report it, they are involved in consultative bodies about it, as the ?Coexistence Observatories? (Observatorios de la Convivencia), and organize initiatives like trainings in conflict mediation skills.

Thank you for your attention, would you like adding anything else?

I would say that the Scholar Community -teachers, parents and students- together should work much more toward coexistence strategies that have as a goal generating a pacific environment in schools.