Teacher at Italian School Uses Creative Approach to Stop the Bullying of a Black Student.

Alexondra Purnomo


Alexondra Purnomo, a first grade teacher at an elementary school in Rome, Italy, is going viral after she shared her creative solution to end bullying. Purnomo noticed that her students in a class of predominantly white children, started teasing Sasha, the only black child in the class, for her short, natural hair. She decided to make the situation a teachable moment.

“Some of the kids made fun of her for her short hair, so she started wearing a hat to school and refused to take it off,” Purnomo wrote on Facebook.

The teasing resulting in Sasha to wearing a winter hat to class and refusing to take it off.

Purnomo teamed up with another teacher decided to use this situation as part of a lesson lesson about differences. She stressed to the kids that whether you are “short, tall, light-skinned, dark-skinned, blond, brunette, with or without glasses, boy, girl, braid, bun, sneakers, shoes,” differences don’t matter.

Sasha finally took her hat off, revealing a little bun, and the other students soon wanted to put their own hair into buns too.

“It gave me chills to see 19 kids come together to help one fellow student,” Purnomo wrote.