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.
