I went to collect Danny from school on Friday and discovered him pretending to clean the floor with a toy iron. It’s a fair mistake to make. When would any child of mine have ever seen an iron, let alone one in action…?
On Tuesday he took a toy animal to school and got into trouble for messing around with it during assembly. So on Wednesday when he thought he was going to take a toy alien, I said no. “Well I’m not going to school then”, he said. Hey, you know what kiddo? When we got to school, he staged a little one-boy sit in in the corridor outside the classroom. His teacher and I tried to argue with him, but he wasn’t moving anywhere. Right before I thought of building a brick wall around him like Henry the green engine (Thomas the Tank engine link here) I gave him a choice; “Danny if you’re not going to come into the classroom then we’ll need to go and talk to (the head)”. “I’ll go and talk to (the head) then” he said, and off he marched. She’s a nice lady, received him with a straight face, dismissed me with a wink, and apparently when they were done Danny went off to his classroom and was good as gold all morning.
Joni’s class were responsible for the “acto” on Friday morning – think equivalent of school assembly. I asked him what it was about. “I don’t know… some war” he said, not very enthusiastically. I should probably have guessed that. In four years in the school system one of the things we are very sure about is that the most important dates are wars, and all true heroes are soldiers. This year for the first time they did read some work by an Argentinean writer, Maria Elena Walsh, but she was in no way promoted as a hero, and we’re still waiting to discover the names of any national artists, sculptors, musicians. scientists, and in particular any non-military agents of social change. (Anyone know who abolished slavery in Argentina?). It’s a strange and narrow patriotism, which is sad in a country with so much that could be celebrated – not least the fact that slavery was effectively abolished twenty years earlier here than in the UK.
Fortunately school isn’t the only place where people learn things, as Joni vividly demonstrated by getting to grips with the strimmer and determinedly cutting back the jungle in the front garden on Saturday morning. As far as I’m concerned, that’s true heroism.