Tour of the Guguță Municipal Puppet Theater in Balti: 250 preschoolers and primary school pupils learned through theater about the dangers of the online environment
Kindergarten no. 34 and the Vladimir Mayakovsky Theoretical Lyceum from Balti municipality are two other institutions teaching in Russian that the Guguță Municipal Puppet Theater visited as part of its tour with the show PikPok.online@guguta around the country. On November 8, the theater team, in collaboration with the Independent Journalism Center (IJC), organized two free cultural events for about 250 preschoolers and pupils of grades 1 to 5. The children watched the performance with interest, learning about the benefits of using the Internet, but also about some risks related to communication and interaction with virtual friends on social networks.
“In an era dominated by information technologies, the Internet has become a very important source of learning, giving us quick access to any information we need. However, beyond the many advantages it has, the online environment also comes with various challenges, especially related to the quality of the information we access. Verifying information from multiple sources and developing analytical and critical thinking skills help us resist in a world oversaturated with information,” Gabriela Lungu, director of the theatre, said in her greeting speech.
She also pointed out to children that while they have true friends in real life, people they don’t know or who are ill minded can be among friends on social networks. “By pretending to tell the truth, they can manipulate you as they wish. Today’s show is about one such character, named Hait or the Manipulative Wolf, who I hope will help you become aware of the risks of being exposed to online pressure. I urge you to find the association between what happens to the forest creatures and situations that you may encounter on the part of your peers with irresponsible behavior on social networks,” Gabriela Lungu said.
The first show the actors of the theater played at Kindergarten no. 34. The children here, accompanied by their educators, enjoyed meeting the characters: Sita the squirrel, Maus the mouse, Hait the wolf, Acorn the boar, Rica the bunny, and Filter the weasel. The young spectators applauded the actors and thanked them for coming to them, teaching them to value sincerity and true friends. Thus, Ira Latyshyova, age five, said that she liked all the characters, but most of all that they became friends in the end. Lena Sukhadeeva, age six, understood that the wolf wanted to become popular through dishonest tricks and that is why he is not a positive character. Of a different opinion is her colleague Mihai Zenico, age six, who said that the wolf is a cheerful character and he liked him because he apologized to all his friends for the bad things he did.
Nadejda Gladco, the educator, told us: “The show is topical, expressive, with many modern heroes that are to the liking of children. Good things are learned slowly, with patience, explanations, and such concrete examples.”
The actors of the Guguță Theater showed their second performance of PikPok.online@guguta at the Vladimir Mayakovsky Theoretical Lyceum in Balti municipality. Hearing that a puppet theater came to them, primary school children (and some older ones) rushed to take a seat in the hall. As we heard, for the vast majority of them this was the first encounter with real theater. “Although ticket prices are not so high, not every parent can afford to take their children to the theater. Having the opportunity to watch this show for free, we were very glad,” shared one of the primary school teachers.
In the 45 minutes of the show, the students had the opportunity to learn useful things in a way that is attractive for them.
“It was like a lesson about the threats we might encounter, but also a preparation to develop skills and attitudes that will help us navigate the digital world in a responsible and safe way,” Ana Cacinscaia, fifth grade student, told us. She also confessed that once it happened that a colleague from another class wrote untrue things about her on a social network. “I didn’t like what she did. At first, I didn’t know how to react. Then I told her to delete everything. She did. She deleted the post, but the memory of it has remained until now,” Ana admitted.
Her colleague Daria Cernaucaia told us that she records videos and posts them on TikTok. “I like to dance, and I post some photos and videos from my performances on TikTok. But I’m not faking anything,” the girl continued, remembering Hait, the character of the show who published fakes.
The sisters Dasha and Ecaterina Cvasniuc, students in the first and second grades, respectively, told us almost in one voice that they watched a puppet show for the first time, and from it they learned that it is not nice to lie to someone and that in a friendship you need to be honest.
“The Internet influences each of us, either positively or negatively. This is the reality. Social networks are the reality of children today, and what they encounter there influences their vision of the present and the future. Not only parents and teachers shape children’s vision, but also the Internet. From there, children learn a lot about the surrounding world, about what people are like, about how one should behave/react in one situation or another. The wolf realized that he was wrong. And we realized that reality is much more important than the virtual world. I think this is the most important message of the show we watched. Children should be aware that reality is what they have to work, learn, face things for; the virtual world should not make them be what others want them be,” Ana Petrova, primary school teacher at the Vladimir Mayakovsky Lyceum in Balti, told us excitedly.
“Probably in the desire to stand out, to make themselves more important in others’ eyes, they resort to the fakes that we saw in the show. Children navigate in the virtual world according to trends, and that is why they post what they expect others to see from them. And if being vulgar is ‘on trend’, children will post something vulgar. Although they may not be like that and do not think what they are doing is good. But being ‘on trend’, they tend to go the wrong way,” the teacher explained. “Watching such shows, analyzing with the children in the classroom the behavior of the characters, the topic of the show (and the parents discussing at home, explaining certain things), the children will understand that it is we who must make the world better, not virtual life must make us better or worse. Parents came to watch this show with their children, as such cultural events are extremely rare in our institution. This performance has been a first for many children who have not seen any theater in their lives. They’ve never been to the theater. They’ve seen movies. But theater is the art of the soul. Thank you for choosing to come to us, in a neighborhood institution,” she said.
PikPok.online@guguta is an adaptation of the educational story “A Click of Fangs or the Manipulative Wolf”, written by media researcher Solvita Denisa Liepniece from Latvia. The show has a duration of 45 minutes and is included in the repertoire of the Guguță theater, both in Russian and Romanian. In partnership with the Independent Journalism Center, the Guguță theatre launched the Romanian language version of the play PikPok.online@guguta in November 2022, and the Russian language version in February 2023.
The show is made in the form of an educational and entertaining story, and it is intended for kindergarten and primary school students. The play helps children understand how the online environment works, urging them to analyze what they see or hear, especially on social networks.
The PikPok.online@guguta show is organized within 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.
