As I grew up in the United States, every time we celebrated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day I would bemoaningly ask my parents, “Why don’t we ever celebrate Children’s Day?!”. They invariably answered, “Because every day is Children’s Day!”
The joy of being a kid
While they had a point, I think that we have all witnessed how the global pandemic has forced children to grow up faster than we would have liked.
Even putting pandemics to the side, it seems that every year children are growing up and maturing faster than the year before!
We teachers of Section B sought to plan a Children’s Day in which kids forgot all about that grown-up nonsense and simply experienced the unadulterated joy of being a kid.
Thus, on Thursday, September 9 and Friday, September 10 we celebrated Children’s Day at Tree of Life. The festivities included decorations for the classrooms, an abundance of games, music, a pizza party, a neon-themed dress up day and a free dress up day.
The events culminated on Friday afternoon in a dynamic activity in the soccer field led by Fiorela Carmona and Daniel Mora, clown extraordinaires.
Fiorela and Daniel are volunteers and hospital clowns for a program called Contagia Alegria, one of the continuous programs for Soñar Despierto, an association run by young volunteers that seek to impact lives by promoting values through different ongoing programs and events.
Members of Contagia Alegría seek to transmit love, generosity and hope through “laughter therapy” to children with illnesses or deficiencies. Fiorela and Daniel have 3 years of experience visiting children in hospitals to spread joy and hope.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, kids have been forced to grow up, and grow apart. The event proved to be a great equalizer as all kids and teachers worked together as equals to achieve a common goal – to have fun!
Nothing academic, just pure enjoyment. It was also a way for teachers to let loose and have fun with the students, temporarily shedding all pretense of being professional educators, simply accessing and acting through our “inner child”.
Speaking personally, it was very gratifying to grab a water gun and spray the students as they ran and screamed in glee!Hopefully, during this event, the kids did not worry about anything.
They did not consider Covid or climate change or their grade on their most recent Mandarin quiz. They simply enjoyed being a child.
Text by Sasha Silberman
Photographies by Leandro Natale