The natural rights of children

Gianfranco Zavalloni (1957-2012) was an elementary school teacher for 16 years, then a school principal in Sogliano al Rubicone in Romagna, and from 2008 to 2012 he was head of the School Office of the Italian Consulate in Belo Horizonte, Brazil "Working first as a teacher and then as a school principal, I realized that almost all children in Europe or from wealthy families in the southern hemisphere have the rights established by the International Charter of Children's Rights (education, health, play, etc.)," explains Zavalloni, "but they are almost denied what I call 'natural rights.'"

This manifesto is aimed at adults, partly because children understand it immediately. As the Little Prince said, '...you always have to explain to adults everything that children understand immediately.'"

we are at a point in human history where everything is planned, scheduled, and computerized. Children's weeks are practically planned out by their families or schools. There is no room for the unexpected. Children do not have the opportunity to do anything independently or play on their own. Children need time to be alone, to learn to "live within the system of rules," learning on their own how to manage small conflicts. And this should happen without the excessive presence of adults. This is the only way to become healthy adults

Don't get dirty," a typical phrase from parents in affluent societies. I believe that boys and girls have the sacrosanct right to play with natural materials such as sand, earth, grass, leaves, stones, twigs... What joy there is in playing in a puddle or a pile of sand. Let's try to observe children closely during breaks from organized games or when we are in a grove... and we will discover how interested they are in playing for hours with just a few things they find on the ground

today, we risk putting everything in a vacuum. We have eliminated the diversity of smells, or rather the olfactory diversity, typical of certain places. Think of the baker's shop, the bicycle repair shop, the shoemaker, the carpenter, the pharmacy. Every place has its own smell: in the walls, in the doors, in the windows. Today, a school, a hospital, a supermarket, or a church all smell the same, like detergent. There are no more differences. Yet who among us does not love the smell of earth after a downpour and does not feel a certain sense of well-being when entering a forest and smelling the typical scent of humus mixed with wild herbs? Learning to appreciate smells from an early age and perceiving the scents offered by nature are experiences that will accompany us throughout our lives

We must increasingly acknowledge the sad reality of a "one-way" communication and information system. We are passive spectators of the many mass media, especially television. In almost every home, people eat, play, work, and welcome friends with the television on. Television transmits cultural models, but above all it shapes the passive consumer. With television, there is certainly no room for discussion. It is different when telling fairy tales, narrating legends, events, and stories, or putting on a puppet show. In these cases, the viewer-listener can also speak, intervene, and engage in dialogue

the market trend is to offer everything pre-packaged. Every day, the industry churns out billions of "disposable" items that cannot be repaired. In the world of children, industrial toys are so perfect and complete that they do not require any input from the child. The habit of playing video games is often encouraged by schools themselves, which, in introducing computers, suggest their appealing recreational use. At the same time, there is a lack of opportunities to develop manual skills, particularly fine motor skills. It is not easy to find children who know how to hammer nails, saw, rasp, sand, glue... partly because it is difficult to find adults who go to hardware stores to buy gifts for their children. The use of one's hands is one of the most neglected rights in our post-industrial society

I am referring to the problem of pollution. Water is no longer pure, the air is filled with all kinds of dust particles, and the earth is polluted by synthetic chemicals. It is said to be the unwanted result of development and progress. Yet today it is also important to "go back." We have rediscovered the pleasure of walking around the city and spending time together in a convivial manner. And this is what children often ask us for. Hence the importance of paying attention to what we "eat," "drink," and "breathe" from an early age

the street is a place for connecting people, for bringing them together. Streets and squares should facilitate encounters. Today, squares are increasingly used as parking lots, and streets are unliveable for those without motorized vehicles. Paradoxically, squares and streets have become places of alienation. It is practically impossible to see children playing in the square. The elderly are constantly in danger in these places. We must reiterate that, like any place in the community, the street and the square belong to everyone... as is still the case in some mountain villages and in many cities in the southern hemisphere

even in our so-called free time, everything is pre-planned. We are in the age of "entertainment." Playgrounds are planned down to the last detail. The same is true on a smaller scale, in school playgrounds or city parks, including street furniture. But where is the possibility of building a place of refuge and play, where are the reeds and thickets to hide in, where are the trees to climb? The world is made up of places modified by man, but it is important that these intermingle with wild places, left in their natural state. Even for children

our eyes can close and rest, but our ears are always open. So, the human ear is constantly exposed to external stimuli. It seems to me that we have become so accustomed to noise and noisy situations that we fear silence. It is increasingly common to attend birthday parties for boys and girls accompanied by deafening music. The same is true at school. The emblem of all this is provided by those who move to the suburbs of cities and walk or cycle into nature for a nice walk with their iPod headphones firmly in their ears. We are missing out on unique opportunities: the blowing of the wind, the singing of birds, the gurgling of water. The right to silence is education in silent listening

the city accustoms us to light, even when there is no light in nature. In our homes, electricity has allowed and continues to allow us to live at night as if it were day. And so often we do not perceive the transition from one situation to another. What is more serious is that few people get to see the sunrise and sunset. We no longer perceive the nuances. Even when we use colors with children, we no longer remember the nuances. The danger is that we only see black or white. We risk fundamentalism. In a society where diversity is increasing rather than decreasing, this attitude can be really dangerous