When the Yellow/Orange children first start school, at the ages of 1 and 2, they are at a stage of development known as the egocentric stage. This period is marked by self-discovery, the expression “it’s mine”, and the fact that they see others and themselves as a single entity, or that everyone else shares their same wants and needs. This is all part of a natural and healthy process of the children’s development and the process of shaping their personality.

This point of their lives also carries a key learning right, which is “to know oneself” and building a personal, social and cultural identity to create a positive image of oneself and others.

Within the educational experience, this learning takes place through experiments and explorations involving languages, playing, caring and different interactions, which allow children to see themselves as individuals, realizing that their attitudes and actions affect the environment around them. This is crucial for them to ultimately see themselves separately from others.

The pedagogical coordinator of be.Living’s little ones, Camila Maia, explains that this process of building identity happens on a daily basis, across all interactions with teachers and other children. “The learning process plays out on a daily basis, through the teachers’ mediations, allowing the children to realize the difference between themselves and others. So, if two children want to play with the same toy car, for example, the teacher will say things like “You want this, but another person also wants it. What if you play together?” or “Wait a little bit until the other person plays with it and then he will give it to you.” That is how the teachers show children that there are other people involved, who are different and have different needs. The children recognize themselves as a being with their own capabilities, desires and needs, and also start to realize that others have different capabilities, desires and needs. This all plays out on a daily basis, regardless of the educational project or curriculum.”

Camila explains that this process of recognizing oneself as a unique individual is extremely important, since it allows children to build a sense of autonomy and independence, further reinforcing the activities they already perform by themselves. “In Yellow/Orange, we work with groups. So, we have children aged 1 to 2 grouped up with children aged 2 to 3. As the older children start to discover their capabilities and have a better grasp of their identity, they take on the role of teaching the younger ones everything they know. It’s is a very meaningful process, because it is also a way to reinforce the children’s knowledge, lessons learned and capabilities regularly, as they must really understand something in order to teach others. We believe that much of the learning process comes from these interactions with peers and teachers, when children start understanding themselves and realizing they belong to a group, which makes them want to somehow contribute to the group. All of this is part of be.Living’s educational project, which is to always put the children at the helm of their learning process.”

The coordinator also shares that, in practice, the process of building identity also happens in the child’s own little world. “Learning also happens in situations of conflict, with adults pointing out that there are other people in the relationship, or when the children go through potty training, which is a huge achievement and a major milestone in the process of shaping identity. The first references of any children to compare and observe are themselves and their families. So, teachers frequently work with family photos for the children to realize that there are different mothers and fathers, or even two mothers, for example. Building upon these experiences, which are closer to the children and easier for them to understand, they start noticing many differences, such as hair color, eye color, preferences (their favorite game or their favorite food), where they sleep at home, on the crib or on a bed, those who use diapers, those who use the potty. All of this is seen not as an achievement, in the sense of who’s doing better or worse, but rather as a basis of comparison for them to see and respect differences in each person’s time, including themselves.”

In a subsequent stage of this process, we introduce diversity to children with different references of cultures, races and ethnicities. “Since we all are, in a way, in our own bubbles, mostly belonging to the same social class, with the same ethnical references and practical experiences, it is very important to help the children recognize the differences between human beings, while also realizing the similarities between all of us, which transcend any differences we may have. The teachers start introducing the topic of diversity within the children’s own universe, showing children in different contexts or introducing child activities from different cultures.”

Camila shares that working on the process of developing identity at a distance has been extremely challenging, especially because the YO groups were considerably skimmed and not every child attends the live streams. “This ultimately restricted their ability to compare with other children, but we have been creating enriching activities and experiences that make sense in the current situation we find ourselves in. We set side additional resources we would otherwise use at school, such as videos and images, because the children already spend enough time in front of the screens, and we decided to focus more on everyday achievements. Many children are just beginning the process of potty training, which is a very important milestone, and some children are starting to perform new tasks by themselves. The teachers have been bringing some of these learning processes to the live streams and building identity based on what is going on around the children and their families. The parents sent pictures to the teachers and they told family stories based on this material. We also created an evolution collage with the children’s pictures, ever since they were little babies, showing them how they were once different themselves, underlining the growth process. Working from afar is very challenging, but we have managed to keep doing a meaningful job.”