STUDENTS' DISCOMFORT: WHAT DID ITALIAN TEACHERS SEE DURING THE PANDEMIC EMERGENCY?

Educational poverty is a non-correspondence between needs and answers, and it concerns both the individual and the context. The manifestations of educational poverty encountered by teachers in their daily work during the pandemic emergency (2020-22) were explored. A semi-structured on-line questionnaire was administered to all secondary schools’ teachers in Varese (Italy). Several areas were investigated: student discomfort; frailty of families; local context opportunities; teachers’ self-efficacy; teachers’ training needs. The data collected (n = 365) highlight widespread and heterogeneous manifestations of discomfort which affected class management negatively; and this despite the fact that many teachers stated that they "did not see" them. The teachers do not feel fully prepared to face these situations and therefore demand further training in this area. They also know little about the educational opportunities in the local context; consequently, (this is our hypothesis) they do not perceive them as allies in educational poverty prevention. Student discomfort behaviour often hinders profitable performance of teaching activities and, in turn, generates discomfort in teachers; these behaviours have been interpreted in their semiotic meaning, that is, as messages of "not being well ". In this perspective, adults must be able? to listen to students’ voices in order to grasp the meaning of their behaviours even before looking for strategies to solve them. Furthermore, the educational challenge cannot be faced individually; it must be tackled collectively, empowering community networks inside and outside school.