The natural rights of children

Gianfranco Zavalloni (1957-2012) was a primary school teacher for 16 years, then a school director in Sogliano al Rubicone (Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy), and from 2008 to 2012 head of the School Office of the Italian Consulate in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. "Working first as a teacher and then as a school director, I realized that almost all the boys and girls in Europe or in rich families in the South of the World have recognized the rights established by the International Charter of Children's Rights (education, health, game...) - explains Zavalloni - but they are almost denied what I define as "natural rights".

This manifesto is aimed at adults, also because children understand it quickly. A bit like the Little Prince said "...you must always explain to adults everything that children understand immediately".

We are in a moment in human history in which everything is programmed, curricular, computerized. Children pretty much have their week planned by their families or school. There is no room for the unexpected. There is no possibility for boys and girls to do something self-managed, to play alone. There is a need for time in which children are alone, in which they learn to "live the system of rules", learning to manage small conflicts on their own. And this without the excessive presence of adults. This is the only way to become a healthy adult.

“Don't get dirty”, a typical phrase of the parent of the welfare society. I believe that boys and girls have the sacrosanct right to play with natural materials such as sand, earth, grass, leaves, stones, twigs... How much joy in messing around in a puddle or in a pile of sand. Let's try to carefully observe boys and girls in moments of break from organized games or when we are in a grove... and we will discover how much interest they can play for hours with just a few things found on the ground.

Today we risk putting everything under vacuum. We have eliminated the differences in nose, or rather the olfactory differences, typical of certain places. Let's think of the baker's shop, the bicycle mechanic's workshop, 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 have the same smell of detergent. There are no more differences. Yet who among us doesn't love smelling the scent of earth after a downpour and doesn't feel a certain sense of well-being when entering a forest and smelling the typical smell of humus mixed with wild herbs? Learning the taste of smells from an early age, perceiving the scents offered by nature, are experiences that will accompany us throughout our existence.

We must increasingly see 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 we eat, play, work, welcome friends "with the television on". And television transmits cultural models, but above all it shapes the passive consumer. With television you certainly don't speak. Telling fairy tales, narrating legends, events and stories, putting on a puppet show is a different thing. In these cases the spectator-listener can also speak, speak and dialogue.

The market trend is to offer everything pre-packaged. The industry churns out billions of "disposable" objects every day that cannot be repaired. In the world of children, industrial toys are so perfect and finished that they do not require the contribution of the boy or girl. The habit of playing video games is often encouraged by the school itself which, in proposing the introduction of the computer, suggests its captivating recreational use. And at the same time there is a lack of opportunities to develop manual skills and in particular fine manual skills. It is not easy to find boys and girls who know how to hammer nails, saw, rasp, sand, glue... also because it is difficult to meet adults who go to the hardware store to buy gifts for their children. The use of one's hands is one of the most disregarded rights in our post-industrial society.

I am referring to the problem of pollution. The water is no longer pure, the air is full of dust of all kinds, the earth is polluted by synthetic chemistry. It is said to be the unwanted fruit of development and progress. Yet today it is also important to "go back". Rediscovered the pleasure of walking around the city, being together in a convivial way. And this is what boys and girls often ask us. Hence the importance of paying attention to what we "eat", "drink" and "breathe" from an early age.

The street is the place to connect people, to make them meet. The street and the square should allow the meeting. Today more and more squares are parking lots and the streets are unlivable for those without a motorized vehicle. Squares and streets have paradoxically become places of distancing. It is practically impossible to see children playing in the square. The elderly are continually in danger in these places. We must reiterate that, like every place in the community, the street and the square belong to everyone... just as it still is in some mountain villages or in many cities in the South of the world.

Even in the so-called free time everything is pre-organized. We are in the era of "fun". The playgrounds are planned in detail. This also happens in small areas, in school parks or in the green areas of cities, including street furniture. But where is the possibility of building a place of shelter-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 interpenetrate with wild places, left natural. Even for childhood.

Our eyes can close and thus rest, but the ear system is always open. Thus the human ear is continually subjected to external stresses. It seems to me that there is a habit of noise, of noisy situations to the point of fearing silence. More and more often it is easy to participate in birthday parties for boys and girls accompanied by deafening music. And so it is also at school. The emblem of all this is given by those who move to the outskirts of cities and on foot or by bicycle take themselves into nature for a nice walk with their iPod headphones firmly inserted in their ears. We miss 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 the transition from one situation to the other is not perceived. What is more serious is that few can see the sun rise and set. The nuances are no longer perceived. Even when we use colors with children we no longer remember the shades. The danger is that of seeing only black or white. There is a risk of fundamentalism. In a society where diversity increases rather than decreases, this attitude can be truly dangerous.