We must talk about children

 

While we are still wavering amidst a pandemic that broke out a couple of years ago, I hear no-one asking the right questions. So I might as well do it myself.

Do we intend to continue pretending that distance learning is equivalent to face to face learning or will it ultimately dawn on us that education is all about interaction and physical presence?

Are we going to turn children into miserable obese creatures sitting in front of a screen and counting down to the very last minute of their Maths session?

Are we to isolate and confine them to their –not always so comfortable -- homes and teach them social skills from a distance? And where will play and fun go? What use will their communication skills be in their electronic cages?

Are we putting across contradictory messages about caring for the environment and protecting the beauties of nature when we are actually reducing their lives to a metaworld of everything?

Are children and teenagers going to be intimidated and emotionally blackmailed into shouldering the deaths of their grandparents and perhaps parents when it is the failures of adults and the so-called experts who should be held accountable?

Will we go on plaguing them with “facts” which have kept changing at a pace that even Russian roulette would envy? How much longer will we sit back and hear “experts” banging on about the dramatic increase in mental illnesses in the near future among children as well as adults for that matter?

Most important of all, how much longer will we force children and teenagers bursting with energy to wear masks made out of all kinds of materials under the delusion – or maybe with malicious intent – that we are doing anything else but asphyxiating them, smothering their voices and criminally suppressing their freedom of speech? I won’t even go into seeing their smiles light up their eyes again and the flame of life return to their expressionless faces?

We are all teachers. Shall we bend over our young pupils and heal their wounds gently reintroducing them to the life we left behind? Shall we regain control of our lives?