Karen Sandi sits on the stairs on the first floor of her home, watching her six-year-old daughter Bali exercise in front of the television. On the screen, the Mexican diver Rommel Pacheco directs the exercises, as part of the routine of the new school year that began this Monday in Mexico with classes taught on television. Bali squats, flexes her legs to the right side, then to the left, jumps, and takes ten seconds of rest, according to her new teacher. "This is complicated," says Sandi, as she smiles at the girl who sees her seeking her approval. “Learning here with a television is not going to be the same as going to school,” says the 26-year-old mother. “At school there is more discipline. This is not correct, ”he adds.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador thanked parents for their efforts to keep their children glued to a screen, so they can follow the televised classes. The president has also admitted that it is a huge challenge to keep more than 30 million students within the system in this way, after the SEP announced at the beginning of August that 2.5 million students dropped out of classes due to the problems generated due to the covid-19 pandemic, which led the Government to lock the schools in March. Nor is it easy in a country with more than 60 million poor people, with millions of others who have to go out to work every day and cannot accompany their children with learning in class. In addition, there are 16 million households that do not have an Internet connection and another 14 million Mexicans who do not even have a television set.
For Karen Sandi it has been a strange day. First, she had forgotten about the morning classes, while her daughter, her youngest son, and the other children played around the house. When she turned on the television, she did not find the channels indicated by the Ministry of Public Education, which, with the support of four private channels and public channels, designed the contents for the course that began on August 24. The zapping lasted several disconcerting minutes: click, a soap opera. Another click, a program of the heart. More clicks: music, sports, documentaries. The girl - separated from the father of her children - assures that she does not have the information on the subjects, she does not have the school books and she fears that the new modality will mean a setback in the learning of her children. Meanwhile, the youngest yells: "I don't want to go to class!" What he wants, he says, is to be a spy, while hiding under the dining room.
All around is noise: the other children run around, go up and down the stairs, ask for food. Sandi lives with her parents, her sister, and other relatives. There are two televisions in the house, but the girl is overwhelmed to think that she, too, must make time, Tuesday and Thursday, to take her classes online so she can finish high school. She hopes her sister will help her with one of the children on those days, she says, while her mother will take care of the youngest. "Imagine how problematic it will be for those who have several children and a single television set!" He exclaims, not without a bit of relief, as if what he has to face is less because he has family support.
The truth is that this morning has been a litmus test for mother and children. Bali watches the drawings that now appear on the screen attentively during art class, but the mother fears that she will soon lose interest and decide to continue running around with the other children in the house. Who will evaluate learning? Karen shrugs. Are there contacts with the teachers? You think so. She is determined to change her children from school to have greater control of the process, because in the school where they now study they were enrolled by the father, with whom they lived. The relationship between the two is not good and the girl feels lost with the new course. He affirms that he will take advantage of the week to complete the procedure in the new school, also public, but he knows that it will not be easy. She lives in Colonia Ajusco, south of Mexico City, one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than 60,000 dead in Mexico. That is why there were no deliveries of school supplies and Karen will not know if she will be able to change schools for her children.
- Did you pay attention? - Asks the mother to Bali
- Yes! - the girl answers, smiling
"Let's see, tell me what the teacher said?"
When the girl returns to the screen, the mother explains, resigned: “This is not a healthy coexistence for children. This is not going to help you. Instead of advancing they will go backwards. It is not going to work and it is not a process for children ”.
In Nezahualcóyotl, east of the capital, 14-year-old Diego Nahuatlato feels a bit puzzled. He has finished the first day of the third year of secondary school, with five subjects taught from the family television, in the small living room of his house, sitting on a sofa with a small table as a desk. The boy has taken notes, has listened carefully to the indications that come out of the screen. "The truth was not good, because they did not teach us things of our grade. They did a review of last year, but they teach us as if we were younger ”, he explains.
It is also a strange experience for him. “On television you don't learn like we were in the classroom, here they don't teach us many things. It's lighter, it demands less, ”he says. He and his parents have all the materials, they know the class schedules, but what confuses him is not knowing if at some point, when he has a question during a class, he will be able to consult it with his teacher. "I think I could send him an email," he says. Diego explains that for this course, the school authorities opened an email to access materials on the Internet, from where they will also send homework. "My mom doesn't like the teaching method," the boy confesses. “Every half hour, at the end of a class, they play music and explain the author's story. We also do stretching. I ignore them, it is a waste of time. I am not suitable ”, he warns.
Esteban Moctezuma, Secretary of Education, on Sunday asked parents for more support and to get involved in this new process, but he himself admitted that it would be difficult: the crisis has hit families and millions of Mexicans have to reinvest themselves to get ahead. Those who still have a contract job, stable, or fixed income, have opted for private education.
This is the case of Yumiko López and Alejandro Escalante, a young couple who live in a comfortable apartment in Coyoacán, south of Mexico City. This Monday morning her son, Bruno, has connected from his mobile phone to his private school classes in his own room, in a small bunker that he has created and decorated with drawings and photos of his two dogs. “We wanted a space that the child felt his own, where he could work,” explains Alejandro.
The couple makes an extra effort to keep the child in school, because their income from apartment rentals has plummeted due to covid-19. “I considered entering him in public school, but then I thought that I still have a chance to pay for his school, a little tight, but I do it to give him stability,” Yumiko says. These parents admit that they are privileged in a country of great inequalities. With their comforts they represent the other side of a strange return to classes, marked by confinement, the pandemic and the closure of schools.