From a distance

The quarantine of several weeks that we are living in our country, also implies the suspension of face-to-face work in the school. As an alternative, the Ministry of Education has indefinitely established a distance education system through radio, television and the Internet.

Regardless of what this sudden change implies for teachers, parents and students, both at the organizational level and in the use of technology, other very important concerns arise from this situation.

Confused, after having spent long hours and entire days developing a tedious and, in my opinion, not very functional, curricular programming, the teachers, in their desire to faithfully comply with all that programming, overload their students with activities, tasks, videoconferences and “remote” evaluations, who have gone from social confinement to academic confinement. And their homes, far from being the ideal refuge in this time of uncertainty, many of them have become small schools where far from learning at ease, nerves and despair grow with more speed and risk than the virus itself (an exaggeration, of course!).

On the other hand, many teachers and students begin to miss the affection that motivates both the desire to teach and to learn. The greetings, the smiles, the hugs and all those expressions of gratitude and innocent and sincere affection of the children, help us to start each day's work. Taking a child's hand to help him write a letter that is difficult for him; sitting down to read a book together; reviewing the tasks one by one, speaking softly so that others do not listen to the corrections ...

Interacting in a video conference is not the same as being together in a classroom, playing learning games, having to remember at all times our coexistence agreements (which have also been replaced by icons and microphone shutdowns pre-established in the system). 

Read virtual books, do virtual tasks, organize virtual meetings and many other virtual activities lacking in virtue.

In this time, we spent many hours in front of the computer trying to learn, looking at each other through cameras and talking to each other through microphones, all to try to get closer, but without paying attention to our tired and distressed expressions, turning off the camera for a while and the microphone so that no one on the other side realizes our reluctance when something is not going well for us.

I miss my school very much, I miss going back and listening to the murmur of those children, their laughter, their songs, their complaints, their cries; I already want to leave  'google classroom', 'zoom' and 'meet'. Nothing can replace the presence of people.

Lola