MY FIRST DAY
OF CLASSES
A week before
classes officially began, the staff and teachers at Centro San José undertook
many activities. They relocated classrooms, arranged furniture, painted,
retouched doors, cleaned the walls and floors and afterward decorated the
preschool grounds. All was done with the purpose of offering a warm welcome to
the children of Jardines San Juan (in the outskirts of Mexico City) when they
arrived for their first day of class. We began the new school year 2015-2016 at
the Centro Comunitario de Desarrollo
Infantil San José bursting with happiness. For we know that each day we
work on building values to form boys and girls to better the prospects of their
future.
Our program focuses
on serving young families, especially those newly arrived in the poor, urban
district where we have the center. Many of these families have little
experience with formal education and the expectations placed on the children
and the parents. The center’s goals include basic preschool education,
in-school meals and nutrition information for the families and much love and
attention to develop, in the children and also their families, the behavioral
skills needed for success in school.
The first day
of class in the morning, moms and some dads arrived at the main door to leave
their children in the hands of their “second moms,” the teachers. The parents
then left to travel to their places of work. Some children arrived with the
desire to enter and mingle with their friends and classmates. For others it was
difficult to return since they had been getting along well at home with their
grandma and siblings. Others arrived afraid because it was their first time at
school. The littlest ones would not stop crying when they noticed they were
being taken from the arms of their moms and received by “strangers.”
As it happens
everywhere and at all ages, the adjustment to a new educational surrounding,
after the summer, takes a few days. The little ones, especially, had to get
used to the environment and relating to classmates who are all attending school
for the first time. During the first weeks of this return to classes, the
principal work of the teachers is to manage these aspects so that the children
become accustomed to each other, relax, live together and get along with ease.
In this new
school year, on the first day we already had
106 boys and girls. That is something that greatly satisfied us, since in
previous years we had not exceeded 100 children. We are glad to be able to
provide nutrition, preschool education and help in the development of the
children in this young and growing population, in which our program is enjoying
a
growing degree of acceptance.
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