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She was one of the first to give the battle so that the children could go for a walk during the confinement. Now, Heike Freire, a teacher and researcher, is fighting so that the coronavirus security regulations do not impose dehumanized and traumatizing classrooms.

You have written the story 'Little Red Riding Hood and the CovidLobo'. What is the purpose of this narrative? I wrote it inadvertently putting myself in the place of what a girl would feel in the face of all this. Have we instilled too many fears in children during this pandemic? I have been very surprised that fear continues to be used as an educational resource. Traditionally, parents used fear to get children to obey. When I was little, people would tell you that if you didn't behave well, the man with the bag would come. It is not a good educational tool. People who are afraid avoid taking risks and developing skills. Fear goes very wrong with learning, and yet there are families who have consciously or unconsciously used it. What traumas has confinement left for children? For them, being separated from their peers is one of the greatest sadnesses. The human being is built through the relationship with the other and in childhood it is fundamental. There are numerous university studies that say confinement has affected your ability to pay attention. Now, there is much more dispersion and difficulty in serving. Have they suffered anxiety? Children directly absorb traumatic experiences from their family environment. If these families have had financial problems or have been overwhelmed by caring for the home and children, this has caused many children to have anxiety or depression. The terraces are full, but the playgrounds are still closed.We, on the theme of the parks, said that they had to be closed because it was thought - although now it is not so clear - that the virus stayed for three to seven days in metal and plastic surfaces. For this reason, we promoted the opening of outdoor parks, which in many cities have been closed until recently. This has increased social inequalities. However, on the terraces no distance can be seen. They want the safety distance of two meters between the children to be maintained in the schools, and on the terraces they are all sitting next to each other. This social distancing is very harmful for children on many levels. That to ask children to put on the mask and to be two meters away is disastrous. You defend that the coronavirus cannot reign in the school. The children have suffered a very strong shock and what we need to work on now is their resilience. The school has to welcome them and help them develop that traumatic experience. Instead, they want to turn teachers into health center commercials into a terrible, heartbreaking, cruel school with messages like "don't touch your nose" or "don't go near your friend." The school is going to receive children who are traumatized and is going to retraumatize them because they are conditions that do not respect their needs or their rights. How should it be then? I defend a school that is organized not from the needs of Covid , but of the needs of childhood. And their main need is to learn to take care of each other. Neither distances nor masks are necessary. Adults cannot create a traumatic environment for children. We have a responsibility to create a healthy environment. We must promote the creation of small groups, always with the same students, because they will be scared. So, are you in favor of having no masks or social distance around school, and that the classes are organized outdoors, taking advantage of the outside space to give them the sun and the air. We are doing a great job in many schools to transform the patios so that they have more nature. The teachers would have to let the children tell what they have lived through art, words or painting. So that they can get rid of that trauma. It is time for us to start taking care of them and not to make absurd laws. In this line, the Executive has backed down and now there will be no need for a mask for children up to 10 years old. Yes, it seems that you have recognized that children are not so contagious. We sent a letter to the Government, which has already signed more than 2,000 professionals for children, and we are continuing because we have many questions: Why have they decided that after 9 years of age they are no longer children or do not need to socialize? Why have the ratios increased? Some autonomous communities reject the plan and allege that the spaces cannot be modified because the expense would be enormous. Why don't they talk about natural outdoor spaces? They only refer to sports centers or libraries, but all schools have patios, gardens and forests nearby. With proper training for teachers, patios can be put up without too much cost. How do you explain to a three-year-old boy that she can't touch a toy or get close to her friends? It's horrible. I have spoken with a teacher from Perpignan who said that as a teacher she was ashamed of what she had to demand of the children. It is to destroy your own self-esteem as professionals. Children need to touch each other. Sociability is a fundamental aspect of the school. Asking a teacher to tell children not to come near is destructive. They are taking away from school the only attraction it has for children that is to be able to meet their peers. How is there going to be a break with social distancing? Neither at break nor in class. Not all classes run in rows because in many of them children work cooperatively in groups. And now, are we going to tie them to a place so they don't move and don't touch each other? Then all educational innovation is over. It can't be! But without masks or social distancing they will end up spreading, right? We have research from the middle and end of March that proves that children are immune and do not spread. At first, it was thought that they could spread because schools are often hotbeds of influenza infection. Many more children have died of the flu or bronchiolitis and a school has never been closed because of this. This virus affects them much less. We are using measures that are causing collateral effects infinitely more serious than the impact that the virus has on them. Is the remedy worse than the disease? The Spanish Association of Pediatrics, the Government and the Ministries of Education should note that children do not suffer from Covid and what they are suffering from right now is from the strict confinements they have suffered. They have been the only children in all of Europe who have not been able to step on the street for a month and a half. Right now we want to put the children in a school that is absolutely monstrous, cruel and traumatizing. How can security measures be combined with a more humane school? The school must be organized based on the needs of children and not based on regulations that are not based on scientific evidence, but rather on fear. In German schools, all they have done is small groups with the same students. They have not let their educational project be loaded with these standards. Each school, based on its environment and parents, has to analyze the data and inform itself and, from there, decide what can be done. The coronavirus cannot reign at school, because it is a space for childhood to develop. It cannot be the opposite. Everyone talks about the benefits of online education. I hardly hear criticism, I am very surprised that nobody says anything. It is a subject that I have been researching for 20 years. My second book is about what happens when kids spend too much time watching virtual reality, when what their brains need is to have interactions with the world. Children have to have enough emotional and sensory experiences to create a representation of that world. They have less and less sensory experiences, right? Aristotle said that there is no knowledge without experience. When a child is under 14, she needs that experience with the concrete and real world in order to build knowledge. I do not understand that the children have been in front of the screen for so many hours and that everyone feels good about it. A long time ago that several specialists in Canada and France have found that part of what is diagnosed as autism is due to an excess of screens. Yes? A baby needs a connection with the eyes of its mother and is, through multiple connections with the mother's gaze and face, where the complexity of human language is built. When a baby from a very young age looks more at the screen of a tablet than in the eyes of her mother, she will end up having sociability problems and is at risk of being labeled asperger or autistic. It is very serious that we are saying that children are so many hours in front of the screens, one by one, and eliminating all aspects of sociability. After all, online education consists of a child sitting alone in front of a computer and at the click of a button she has her favorite video games within reach. Furthermore, it is relating to a second-hand reality. What is on the other screen? Representations that another person has made and what a person needs is to have a first-hand experience of the world. You cannot relate only to abstractions because you do so at the cost of your spatial, emotional intelligence capabilities ... How are you going to discover your emotions if you are relating to a screen that has no emotions? As the days go by, the children are totally off center and many have regressed in knowledge. Not only in knowledge. There have been children who were developing spatial intelligence or sociability issues and who have been harmed by the confinement situation. The inequality between schools has been enormous. In the beginning, there was a wave of teaching exercises, homework, and tools to keep parents entertained. But that was not the most important thing at the time. Maybe you had to sit down with your son and watch what was happening to him instead of taking him out to do exercises. There have also been many differences between teachers: some have overturned and others have been missing. sided with the family and they have called. They have been human. And then there are those who have sent homework and then a little message to ask if the child had done it. Many parents were lost, suffocated, and overwhelmed. But there have been teachers who have done a brilliant job of accompanying those families. You also denounce the nature deficit in children. It is a problem that has been growing in the last 30 years due to the growth of cities, where 60% of the population lives. There are hardly any spaces and the children are increasingly locked up with the screens. We have more and more children with neurodevelopmental problems. Many no longer know how to play. The games before were transmitted spontaneously, but the children of today do not know the cops and cacos or the churro. It's not just that those traditional games have been ordered. In the book that we are going to publish in September, which is called 'Live Playgrounds', we reveal that there are 30% of children from Infantil who no longer want to go out to play on the playground because they cannot think of what to do. .Sure! Imagination is very important within the game. In the video game you do not use your images, but those of the producer. In addition, in the schoolyards, soccer is omnipresent and those who do not play soccer are marginalized. Why not encourage other games? There are many cabbages that are working so that in the yard there are many other proposals. In playgrounds with more nature and other ideas, children develop more collaborative and creative play, resolve conflicts, and cooperate more. Are we 'adultizing' children? Yes, by having them locked up and wanting education to be understood only as a bank education. What really builds you as a person is not what you have studied or memorized, but the experiences you have lived. The adult you will be tomorrow has nothing to do with diplomas or extracurricular activities but with the experiences you have had.

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