Set aside

Of course we, like everyone else, did not expect all this.
I could never have imagined that, at any moment, I would have to shut myself up at home, stop attending university, stop going out with my friends. Everyday life, the thing I took most for granted, had turned upside down.
Everything that seemed obvious to me suddenly became uncertain. I was afraid.

An email a few days before the return date following the winter exam session.
The rector informed us that for the following weeks, due to the progressive spread of the virus, the lessons would be held online.
I probably underestimated the effects this could have on me. Distance teaching has made studying and learning much more complicated.
Beyond the technical problems, which have undoubtedly influenced the effectiveness, the lack of direct, immediate support, the lack of possibility of a real-time comparison with one's classmates and with the professor, the apparent inconsistency between those which were the explanations and the material that was provided to us, all contributed to the gradual loss of perception of reality.

It seemed that everything was reduced (badly) to those hours of sociability that the screen once a day offered you. Life, school, relationships, friendships all boiled down to this.
The only window to the world had become video calls.
«Video calls? Cold. The feeling of being close to whoever is on the other side of the screen, perceiving him has almost become nothing. We become apathetic in the face of situations that previously triggered something else in us. We lack human warmth. You are there but in reality you are not there, no one looks you in the face, no one notices the perplexity in front of a topic that you may not have understood.
You are there, but in reality you are not there », my cousin explained to me that she is in eighth grade.
Here, however, this window was constantly becoming smaller and smaller, and less and less satisfied your need.
The people who surrounded you in the house, and who were basically always the same, became more oppressive and you, with them, more and more irascible. At home the tension increased, impatience, fatigue, frustration were felt. It is paradoxical to think that in a moment of closure, such as the one we have experienced, the company we so desire can become a big problem.

And so my thoughts go to all those boys and children who, like me, went to "school" staying in the same room with their sisters or brothers.
Or maybe in the kitchen while mom was preparing food. Or to those who, like my sister, begin late at night to listen to the lessons recorded by the professors.
To all those children who, like Soad, in the same house in turn had to pass the computer to be able to follow the lessons, and who sometimes found themselves forced to leave because at that moment, a brother or sister had to use it. One day, after asking her why she didn't understand the fractions despite the teacher having explained them, she said to me: "That day it was Yasmine's turn, then tomorrow afternoon it's Amin's turn, we take turns."

To all those parents who do not know how to use a tablet or a PC and who have not been able to connect their children to lessons with the teachers. To Malak who is now in second grade and has not yet learned to read and barely distinguishes the letters from each other. The desperate mother told me: “I feel guilty because I was unable to help her. I don't know how to use a tablet, I didn't know how. Nobody helped me. You missed a year of school because of me. '

I have often heard someone say: «But what can they do that is impossible?
Now is being in front of a computer difficult too? ». It is not to be taken for granted that a student can keep up with class hours in front of a screen.
It is not obvious because it is wrong to standardize everyone's conditions by thinking that anyone with a quiet room where they can follow the professor, that anyone with a computer and a stable internet connection.

It was wrong to believe, especially when thinking about the neighborhood I live in, that all children, from a distance, would go hand in hand. Many children cannot count on their parents because they do not speak Italian, many have not had the technological tools that this type of teaching requires, many others, if they did have them, had to share them.
Many did not even have the right to a minute of video call, because the teachers only sent cards to be completed, without explaining anything and without taking the trouble to correct them.
It was wrong in organization, management and regardless of thinking. It was wrong to believe that school was just the teaching of subjects and to overlook the fact that at school we grow up for the relationships that are created, the people we meet, the things we do.

At this time, more than ever, the investment in education must be great, it must aim at the training and education of children and young people. We felt left aside and the various manifestations of frustration on the part of so many students across the country as well as the kids taking lessons on the street outside the school are proof of this. We are no longer afraid, just a lot of anger.

Fatima El Maliani
NP February 2021