Two and a half months. On the scale of a school year, it's a life. However, my children, like 87% of young Parisians (yes, yes), are still under house arrest today. And for another five good weeks, until the end of the so-called "school" year if I believe the (public) school, obviously not able to open the gates soon, contrary to the grandiloquent announcements made by these -the.
The first days, however, we thought it was nice, to dive into the old book "1000 problems", the Bled, the Pilotis files, to rediscover with family the joys of the compound past, the myths of Antiquity , build butterflies with forks or paper frogs. How cool it was, this time spent learning together while the sun was beating down on the window and it was obviously necessary to protect ourselves and the elders, the vulnerable, by carapating with these little beings who spit, cough, lick the subway bars and don't care about the viruses that spread from mouth to mouth.
And then time passed. Days, weeks, months (months!). The enthusiasm of the little ones is gone, and so is our enthusiasm. The tone is raised. We swung the purple course, disgusted with the 1000 problems that we no longer even corrected. Tried to make Zooms, Skypes, Teams with happy colleagues without children who took up serious work, or parents who, like us, seemed to have cremated their hairbrush and their professional dynamism at the same time as the lists of homework , textbooks and grid sheets. Believe it or not, dear media and government who praise the joys of "telework" and its utopian compatibility with the amateur monitoring of kids who have been out of school for a quarter of a year.
Bha yes, let's be clear. As spring settled, the little ones stuffed themselves with screens. From Disney +, from Brawl star, from Animal crossing, from Candy crush, lots of stupid and fluorescent things that passed before their lobotomized eyes while the outside world reopened its doors gently. Because of the digital divide, quite a few of them did not have access to the famous homework sent from the school oasis anyway. Other no "sanctuarized" office. Or parents present to play the mistress. In short, school telework, as much to tell you right away, is not the Eldorado of the world of tomorrow.
May 11. We had that in our sights.
The President had said eye to eye with my six year old son on TV. "We will reopen the schools on May 11". Children are our PRIO-RI-TÉ. Phew! Especially since mine, in CP and CM2, are in level known as "hinge", very important, therefore. Prio on prio. A little earlier, we were asked if we wanted them to go back to school. "On a voluntary basis" (in "at your own risk" mode). Indicated that it would not be funny, funny. "Very progressive". That the little ones would have masks, no recreation, no canteen, not the right teacher, surely. That it would only be for a few hours, probably. No big deal. Yes, yes, we said. We're ready! Confuse us, even in spacesuits.
May 11 has arrived.
And nothing. Out of 350 students, the school could only take forty. Because "sanitary measures" did not allow to accommodate more. Bha yes, one meter distance between each student, eight daily handwashes, fifteen children max per class, disinfection of any object, balloon, pencil, notebook, hardly was it touched, it was not going be simple. Disappointed but disciplined, we told ourselves that this was the "next world". We had to take every precaution, leave virtual lofts around each individual because the danger was too great. "Say mom, after the world after, it will be the world before"? asks the little one. Yes, yes my darling, worry.
So we continued "home school," wisely.
Take up the past participle, because you must not "approach new concepts" from a distance. Ah. So how do we finish the program?
In the afternoon, we went for a walk to take out the moon kids. "Oh well, is there no school? "Ask colleagues from Skype, Zoom and Teams who are not very happy because we cannot" telework "full time when the media say that the children have left to work. That everyone has found their “balance” in this new modern way of working where the employee pays for his electricity, his food, his box and his coffee with his personal money. Around the not reopened parks, we stuck with the other kids forgotten by society, agglutinated to each other with their strollers, their scooters, their balloons, their pals and their moms in PLS, happy to finally be able to find themselves because remember, school is also and above all "learning to live together without excessive fear of the other", "stopping the deleterious effects of confinement on certain children: school dropouts, victims of abuse, lack of vaccine protection , break in follow-up for a chronic illness ”, have a“ socio-educational environment beneficial to their development ”, as indicated by 20 presidents of learned societies of pediatrics who loudly demand their return to school. "It is urgent to control our fears and move forward for the sake of our children," say the experts. In the wind.
"Very progressive" …
As of May 20, 10.2 million kindergarten to grade 12 students are still full-time at home *. And their parents with, to whom their friendly employers will soon ask (from June 2) for certificates to justify the reason for their inability to come back behind their cash desks, their counters, their counters (oh well, we can't leave a 7 year old child alone at home?). However, everywhere, on the banks of the Seine, the lawns, the woods, the sidewalks, in the apartments, the "private" evenings with more than ten, twenty, forty happy lads, the swings, the rides (sic!), The places of worship (sic again), it seems that many have long since gone to other heavens than the strict health protocol recorded on a ministerial pdf recorded in the midst of an epidemic.
The ace. "Maybe not until September," we are told from the school side. "We do not really know, we are awaiting the education office," said the mayor. "90% of the schools have reopened," says Jean-Michel Blanquer bluntly in the newspapers, on TV, everywhere, as we start our 74th day of "home schooling" with difficulty. The minister "hopes that all children will have been able to physically return to school at least once by the end of May". Arghh, J-2, Jean-Michel. Yeah. There, we want to throw him too overboard with the manual "1000 problems", the paper frogs and the mental health of our abandoned kids.
What was our "priority" already?
* The Parisian of 05/26
Adèle Bréau is a novelist (The big court, the smell of glue in a pot … published by Lattès editions). Sisters is his fifth novel (to be released June 2). You can find it on:
Twitter: @ theAdele32
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Blog: www.adeledebrief.wordpress.com