School adaptation in times of pandemic: what about emotional ventilation?

We have already been back to the classrooms for a few weeks and, in the different media, there is much talk that there are classrooms that have had to close because there are students who have tested positive, there is talk of isolated groups of children, or the threat that they will have to give classes online again.

I say threat because it has become clear that children need to be together, meet again and socialize, feel the support of your peer group, especially in the case of adolescence. They need to get out of the house and be in that other school environment that so many things allows children and young people to develop.

We have been talking about this for several weeks, and I think there is another topic that is rarely talked about and, in my opinion, is extremely important.

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The importance of emotional ventilation in the little ones when they go back to school

If we start from the basis that this course is different from many others, practically all the others, if we take into account that the previous course was closed in a totally unusual way, we will agree that we are in a different scenario, which has never occurred before with these features.

I do not discover anything new if I remember that students of all levels have spent 6 months without going to class, without being in the school environment and without so many and so many aspects of their day to day that, in some cases, this has made a much bigger dent than what is being taken into account.

So, it surprises me to a great extent that, after these weeks of course, the classes try to follow the curricular rhythm that touches. I believe it is essential that teachers, management teams and whoever corresponds, realize that they may be doing something wrong, something negative for the students.

Let's go in parts: Are there really those who believe that asking the children to write down how they have passed the confinement and the pandemic is enough? This activity has been, in many centers, all they have dedicated to talking about what happened.

I think that a writing or a specific activity of any kind (drawing, dynamic exercises or games), a single activity or two in these weeks, is completely insufficient. I believe that we are leaving aside something very important, which is the need for emotional ventilation that many children (boys and girls) urgently need.

I do not intend at all to question the importance of following the school curriculum, trying to make up for lost time, in subjects that corresponds, despite the fact that I consider that mathematical operations, knowledge of language or science, are insufficient in the development of people who have experienced something unheard of and that may have affected them in the deepest part of their being and well-being psychological.

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To do?

I think it would be good if, In these weeks that we have been in the course, a lot, a lot, a lot would have been said about how they and they have been, having left room for their fears, having been able to tell their life stories, who has lost a loved one, if they have been grandparents or parents, uncles, neighbors with whom they passed in the portal or in the park.

According to my point of view, also teachers should share their own life stories and thus allow us to understand that this is something that affects us all, share the experiences without transferring excessively the fears or concerns that each person may have. I think that makes us human, close and connects people with people.

I think doing this is not easy; perhaps not all teachers are prepared (although you can count on other professionals, psychologists for example), but let's not forget that we are talking about mental health, which is health, after all.

If we do not realize the emotional needs of these new generations, we will have a serious risk of mental illness in society, in people who, although they have recovered the rhythm in academic subjects, they will not be able to face future situations, as adults, because emotionally, they will not have recovered from something experienced very hard and great dimensions.

It draws my attention powerfully, in stories of well-known people who are dedicated to teaching, or in radio talk shows, to hear that in high schools there is not that bustle of classrooms, patios or corridors, among other things because they take care that it is not So. I wonder if the teachers don't realize that, In addition to preventing COVID-19 infections among students, it is necessary to help prevent depression, generalized anxiety, or other more severe disorders that may be presented in the future. Let's talk about emotions, let's talk about how everyone feels, let's leave space for people to feel that are important, let's understand that, currently, people are more important than getting to see the whole agenda full.