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

Focusing only on the virus means that emotional wellbeing is neglected during the return to school.

We have been back to school for a few weeks now and, in the different media, there is a lot of talk about classrooms that have had to close because some students have tested positive, about groups of isolated children, or about the threat of having to return to online classes.

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

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

The importance of emotional ventilation in the smallest in the return to school.

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

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

So, I am very surprised that, after these weeks of school, the classes are trying to keep up with the curriculum. I think it is essential that teachers, management teams and whoever else is responsible, realize that they may be doing something wrong, something negative for the students.

Let's take it one step at a time: Do some people really believe that asking children to write an essay about how they have gone through the confinement and the pandemic is enough? This activity has been, in many centers, all they have dedicated to talk about what happened.

I think that an essay or a specific activity of any kind (drawing, exercise dynamics or games), a single activity or two in these weeks, is completely insufficient. I believe that we are neglecting something very important, which is the need for emotional ventilation that many children have. 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 the corresponding subjects, even though I consider that mathematical operations, language or science knowledge are insufficient in the development of people who have experienced something unprecedented and that may have affected them in the depths of their being and their psychological well-being.

What to do?

I think it would be good that, in these weeks that we have been in the course, to have talked a lot, a lot, a lot about how they have been, to have left space for their fears, to have been able to tell their life stories, to have been able to tell their stories of their lives.We should have been able to tell their life stories, who has lost a loved one, whether it was grandparents or parents, aunts and uncles, neighbors they met in the doorway or in the park.

From my point of view, I also teachers should share their own life stories and thus allow us to understand that this is something that affects all of us.I believe that this makes us human, close and connects people with people. I think this makes us human, close and connects people with people.

I believe that doing this is not easy; perhaps not all teachers are prepared (although we can count on other professionals, psychologists for instance), but let's not forget that we are talking about mental health, which is health, at the end of the day.which is health, after all.

If we do not take into account 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, will not be able to face future situations, as adults, because emotionally, they will not have recovered from something very hard and of great dimensions.

It is striking to me, in stories of people I know who are involved in teaching, or in radio talk shows, to hear that in high schools there is not that bustle in classrooms, courtyards or corridors, among other things because care is taken to ensure that it is not so. I wonder if the teachers do not realize that, in addition to preventing the spread of COVID-19 among students, it is necessary to help prevent depression, generalized anxiety disorders or other more severe disorders that may occur in the future. that may occur in the future. Let's talk about emotions, let's talk about how everyone feels, let's leave room for people to feel that they are important, let's understand that, nowadays, people are more important than getting to see the whole agenda.