PikPok.online@guguta show on tour. Nearly 200 children from Rascani trained their critical thinking through theatre
The Municipal Puppet Theatre “Guguta” started touring with the Russian version of the show PikPok.online@guguta, and the first locality where the creative team reached is the town of Rascani, almost 180 kilometers away from Chisinau. At the end of the school year, 198 children from the “Dimitrie Cantemir” High School in Rascani, a Russian-language educational institution, watched the theatrical performance, danced, and applauded the actors’ performance on Monday 27 May.
The young spectators, all primary school students, came away from the performance with a lesson learned: we should be just as careful online as we are in real life.
“The performance showed me that even when surfing the internet we have to behave correctly, but also to be careful who I talk to and what I watch,” said 11-year-old Djamilia, a 4th grader.
“On the internet, as in real life, we have to be careful who we are friends with. It’s important not to fall into traps,” added her classmate Cristi.
The teachers present at the show with their pupils said they would discuss the lesson show with their students. “Today’s generations depend a lot on new technologies, on the internet. There are advantages and disadvantages. I saw the children in my class impressed by the show. We are going to have a lesson where we will conclude”, said Alina Balchivscaia, teacher of class III “B”.
“As a headmistress, teacher, and mother, I can say that this performance was very useful. Nobody sits down to explain to the little ones about the dangers of the internet. Maybe parents tell them about certain pitfalls, but children interpret parents’ words as a ban. Here, through puppet theatre, stories, and examples from life, they form certain skills differently,” said Natalia Chiperi, headmistress of the “Dimitrie Cantemir” High School.
PikPok.online@guguta is an adaptation of the educational story “A Click of the Fangs or the Manipulative Wolf”, written by Latvian media researcher Solvita Denisa Liepniece, and is aimed at kindergarten and primary school children.
The performance lasts 45 minutes and is included in the repertoire of the “Guguta” Theatre, both in Russian and Romanian. In partnership with the Independent Journalism Center, the “Guguta” Theatre launched the Romanian version of PikPok.online@guguță in November 2022 and the Russian version in February 2023.
The show is in the form of an educational and entertaining story and is intended for kindergarten children as well as primary school students. The play helps young children understand how the online environment works, encouraging them to analyze what they have seen or heard, especially on social networks.
The PikPok.online@guguta show tour is organized within the framework of the project “Media Education and Literacy and Optimisation of Newsrooms” (MELON). This project is financially supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Moldova.
