One of be.Living’s building blocks is the sense of ownership. Here, from the time they enter school as little kids to their graduation in Year 5 of elementary school, children are seem as individuals with autonomy to self-develop, empowered and curious about their learning processes, and capable of raising meaningful questions about themselves and the world. The pandemic, however, has brought us a major challenge: “How to continue fostering autonomy and the sense of ownership in children from a distance, in an online environment?”

The coordinator of elementary school Gabriela Fernandes told that she was mostly concerned about the younger children in Years 1, 2, and 3. “Children in Years 4 and 5 have managed to exercise autonomy and take ownership in the online environment. The smaller ones are in a different phase.  Children in this age group are always working with someone – either with their colleagues, or with teachers, who are always in the classroom monitoring their learning process up close, from one desk to another. So, thinking of ways to make these children “get their hands dirty,” on their own, in their own ways, was a major challenge for us. We put a lot of effort in the search for tools that could facilitate this. We realized that Google Classroom was very easy to operate and required minimum autonomy. For Year 1, we discovered a tool called Flipgrid, which helped us a lot in bringing this autonomy to them.”

 Gabi says that the experience revealed abilities that had been unnoticed. “We started to realize that these kids have a very large repertoire of YouTube, Internet, and writing content, because most have a tablet, they play online. So we started thinking about proposals and situations in which they could take advantage of these tools that they love so much and usually use for fun and apply them in school. In some cases, we ended up changing the curriculum. The teachers began working with television news and storytelling, they moved from a writing process to a retelling process. They started retelling stories using puppets and household elements. We’re witnessing Years 4 and 5 doing a great autonomous work; there are children in Year 5 leading the Parent Meeting by themselves via Loom. What seemed to be a problem at first has proven to be something totally different along the process, because we realized that they already had a rich repertoire. We started proposing situations that we would never even think about proposing at school, and we’re surprised with the empowerment they are starting to show.”

Year 3 teacher Fabiola Godoy also agrees that this whole process has been positively surprising from the very beginning. “If we were asked where we would be in 2020, I don’t think any of us would have imagined staying at home in quarantine due to a pandemic. This fact suddenly took us by surprise. At first, we were very afraid about how this was going to work. But then we went on and got our hands dirty, and everything started to flow. Of course, nothing was easy and simple, but with support from other teachers and families, we kept going and started to see results. Some children who barely used a computer are now handling it with great ability. Others who seemed shy in front of the camera are now using it as an ally, after all, the opportunity to meet their classmates and teachers online speaks louder, so appearing in the camera became more important than hiding from it. Those who needed help to turn off the audio while another colleague was speaking now do it without even being asked; some even ask others “So-and-so, please mute your microphone because I can hear you talking over there,” and so on. All of this means developing autonomy.”

To make the virtual environment more lively, we started to conduct shared reading, artistic, and gaming activities once a week, creating a light playful atmosphere full of stimulus, curiosity, and mutual encouragement. “Some of the most successful projects that we plan to use by the end of this year are in Year 3. One of the most important projects is the online portfolio. Children get together with teachers to individually choose the most meaningful activities for them and create an online folder that they can access whenever they want and share with friends and family. Games like bingo, hangman, memory games, and Kahoot help us consolidate language and vocabulary in a very fun way, and kids love it. For some activities, we asked them to send us videos or audios retelling stories or making a news conference, and what a surprise it was to watch them getting creative! We have a large project in Year 3 called “Ways of Living in Different Times,” in which children learn about indigenous peoples in Portuguese language and ancient Greece in English language. For this project, we are creating a website to feature the boys and girls and their photos, texts, biographies, and videos made throughout the year, and the idea is to share the content with the school community. On our side, the most important thing is to encourage children in this moment and let them know the progress they have made in such a short period of time.”

According to Year 3 teacher Michele Ristow, it was critical to assure the families and children that the teaching-learning process, which includes taking ownership and the development of autonomy, would not be interrupted because of social distancing and the online environment. “The most important thing is to foster self-confidence and validate it with the child, and to understand that any issue involving mistakes or delays in the delivery of activities are phases of a path that is being paved; not one set in stone, but rather still under construction; it’s a learning path for teachers, families and children alike. Promoting these dialogues with the family was critical for facing these challenges and making them see improvements every day and make decisions taking their rights and duties in consideration, both regarding school and our agreements,” she added.

Michele recalls that children came into contact with very strong emotions during quarantine and that emotional issues interfere with the learning process of the little ones. “While these issues can hinder and compromise the entire learning path of a child who was already doing very well, they also provide opportunities for improving certain behaviors and ways of acting in the classroom that can change in distance learning. It is important that we validate what these children are doing from a distance and listen to them. I believe that we have to practice attentive and active listening to validate this thing we are building together, step-by-step. This way, we will empower them to trust and understand their capacity, and build their autonomy as their feeling of trust is strengthened.”

Some studies have shown that ownership is a reality in the distance learning process. Self-confidence, autonomy, and creative power were attributes that enabled Year 3 to produce a music video, under the guidance of music teacher Amanda Ribeiro. “On the occasion of the June Festivals, we used coconuts to practice singing and rhythm, and we also used books as tambourines. They started sending me several videos of them playing with the coconut and their “book tambourines,” and I realized they had already mastered that thing. That’s where we got the inspiration to make a music video of us singing, from a distance. The kids rocked, each one recorded a piece of the song, they were super beautiful and in tune, and I’m super proud of them and our first video clip! The idea is to do that with the other classes too!”