Learning from Children
Chris was on the verge of tears as he told us that Ash will soon be moving and changing schools. Ash is one of his best buddies in his primary school class where they’ve been together for 3 years. I still remember from the very beginning of first grade the races Ash and Chris would engage in on the sidewalk on their way home from school. Chris would hand me his school backpack and away they would go, “flying” down the path, turning the corner, then hiding in bushes in an adjacent park until I found them.
Last week their teacher announced to the whole class that in the coming days Ash would be leaving them to go to another school as his family was moving across the city. Several in the class broke out in tears including Chris. In the following days Chris’s parents tried to console him when they frequently found him in tears as he pondered “losing” his good friend.
What perhaps makes this story more meaningful and moving is that Ash is from North Africa. Ash is Muslim. This absolutely doesn’t matter to Chris nor his classmates. Ash is their friend, a friendship forged during these three plus years of shared experiences.
Living in Italy, most of the kids in school are obviously Italian. However, in Chris’s class there is also Paulo who speaks German as his family is from Germany. Donita and Mara are from Eastern Europe, Mari comes from Asia, and Hasan, like Ash, is from North Africa and speaks Arabic. Then there is also Chris who has North American parents. Six languages and six cultures represented beyond the prevalent Italian one.
Increasingly this is our world, mixing of peoples and cultures as the world becomes more cosmopolitan. This change meets resistance in some circles. However, kids perhaps lead the way in not de-valuing people just because they have a different skin colour or cultural background.
Dare we not learn from them??!!
Alex, March 2022
*names & places edited for anonymity
Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash
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Thanks for this lovely story. It’s another confirmation of the truism that we aren’t born with hatred in our hearts. It has to be learned.
What a beautiful story! It reminds me of what Maria Montessori, the founder of the Montessori educational model, used to say, “Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future.” They carry our hope forward and we do have so very much to learn from them! Thank you!