La escuela postpandemia
Translator: Gisela Giardino
Reviewer: Sebastian Betti
One of my students, Alan,
lives in a house in Villa Itati,
with his mom, five brothers,
her sister-in-law and his little nephew.
When he is done helping in the house,
he showers and goes out.
He crosses three corridors
of the neighborhood.
He climbs a very steep mud slope
and walks the last block to get to school.
He is not going to learn with his mates,
but to line up to get
his family’s daily meal.
Due to the lockdown the place is closed.
While waiting for the food at the door,
he uses the free wifi
to download the assignments
his teachers sent him
and send those he’s already done.
Today, he borrowed
the family’s only cell phone
because they knew
he would have an Internet connection.
He gladly reads the messages
in which teachers encourage him
to continue studying.
And, besides,
we also answer his questions.
It’s not easy at all for him
to study remotely
but at least he has a space
where to make his questions.
With empty classrooms
opportunities are moving away
and the inequalities
a lot of kids live
since a long time ago deepen.
And today they juggle to have access
to their right to learn.
Yes, it is true that families and teachers
welcome schools in our homes
and we gave them the shelter
they needed to keep on working.
But it’s also true that
it became more evident than ever
the need to maintain
and promote those bonds
the school building used to enable.
When we teachers meet at school
to put together the bags with food
the most important thing for us
is to have news, to exchange news,
of the kids from who
we don’t know anything lately.
We’re so alert that,
while the bags are delivered,
we go through the line
looking for a relative
or anyone else
that can deliver some news.
Because of the pandemic some kids
went to live with another family
when their parents, or grandparents
are hospitalized, or isolated.
If it used to be so hard
that many of them
keep their regular assistance
in high school,
now our biggest concern
is that they don’t give up,
that they don’t give up the school year.
When the school got into the homes
it turned everything upside down.
Valen, for example,
is sick of all that video calls,
of this much homework
sent by his teachers,
so much, that he asked his mom
“make the school go out of my home.”
Moms and dads had to change
all our routines
to engage even more
with our kids' education.
In my case, it was a good thing.
My teenage son,
who has attention deficit disorder,
for the first time in his schooling
is keeping up to date with his homework.
And, just like Alan, he asks his doubts
directly to his teachers.
He learned how to use tools
to read and write better.
To him and many young people,
to be forced to use technology
helped them create an autonomy
they didn’t have.
On the other side of the device
my fellow teachers
did what they could.
Most of us take care of our families
at the same time as
we’re working at home,
with scarce resources,
replying to the kids and families
at any time of the day,
planning permanently,
correcting from screens.
Daniel, for example,
is an excellent teacher in the classroom.
But he now feels excluded
by the little grasp he has of technology
and how quickly he had to catch up.
At the other end, Alejandra
spends her time trying apps,
trying one and a thousand times
even when this takes hours on end.
And, also, like in any job,
some choose to wash their hands
and overload others with their work.
That’s how the school is today.
Like a virtually dismantled machine.
With all its parts on display.
You can see all the imperfections.
And an emergency operation
we could perform with what we had.
It’s an old machine. Old and noble.
But it’s got a lot of wire-tied parts,
from education reforms,
coming from remote desks far away
from the reality of each school.
Schools that, in addition to educating,
were entrusted with a lot
of huge responsibilities.
And, as if this were not enough,
they were filled up with useless
and tremendously bureaucratic tasks.
Now we all have a unique opportunity,
to put it back together
to make it work much better.
We have to give more prominence
to kids and young people
to take part and commit
to their education.
But also to avoid
absurd discussions between adults,
that would be easily solved
with asking the kids.
We need to keep families in this loop.
They took over schooling
in their homes
and whose active participation
is important not to lose
for the school we will go back to.
And, moreover, to call in universities,
faculties, social institutions,
from soup kitchen to social clubs,
as part of the social fabric
that collaborates
and feeds back
from what goes on at school.
I don’t know how
this is going to look like.
When we reassemble this machine
with the pieces we had
and the new tools we have.
But I’m sure
that in-person schooling
has to take a super important role
to build better bonds
and not to be wasted
in activities that today
we’ve understood by force
that can be done remotely,
or are obsolete.
If we go back to the same school,
it means we didn’t learn anything.
We owe it to the children,
to the teachers, to the families,
who are making a huge effort
to guarantee the right to education.
A really quality education,
that transforms every one of us
from affection,
as people we are and as citizens.
We have a unique opportunity
that’s not going to be given again.
Not even in a hundred years.
The challenge is to live up to it
and take charge of thinking and creating
a better school, together.