Education and frustrations

School work with young children always requires having some resources that allow us to capture their attention and interest, even more so, in the virtual environment that is much more tiring, exhausting and distant.

Personally, I like to read or tell them stories before starting my daily activities, I also like to tell riddles, learn rhymes, among other things. To my surprise, the remote system prevents me from carrying out these activities with the naturalness and spirit with which I do it when I am in front of them. And it is not the same as reading or telling a story walking between the tables, where the children listen attentively, changing the tone of my voice, moving my arms, pretending to run, jump - even shouting together, if necessary, than to do it through a tiny screen where we hardly see heads. We have been experiencing this situation since last year, so it is felt more every day. It is not something that “the body gets used to”, as we say.

It is even worse, because we do not have enough trust with the family member who accompanies the child at home; few families do it in silence, only listening to be attentive to the materials they need or the tasks in which their help is required. In many cases, and this is seen more and more, the companion tends to intervene, draw the child's attention away, make unnecessary comments, or tease.

Once a child's mother called me to tell me to avoid sad stories because her son can't handle them. She advised me to put a happy ending on every story to prevent the children from feeling bad, so as not to hurt them. In more than thirty years of service, I had never heard anything like it. At first I thought that perhaps this mother did it because we are in permanent tension due to the pandemic, but no, the lady explained to me that she never tells sad things to her son, since he was born, she told me. In fact, she has been forced to change the plot and ending of many classic stories to prevent her child from hearing sad words.

Imagine, then, the frustration I feel now, not being able to be as spontaneous as I would like. Not being able to explain to children, taking advantage of a story, that there are people who suffer, that there is death, pain, fighting, envy. That the world is not a completely happy place. That stories are fantasy, imagination, but they are also very close to real life. They serve to explain what happens in people's minds and hearts. For a few weeks now, I've been spending more time telling riddles, rhymes and jokes for children. Until I find a way to overcome these frustrations.