Читать книгу Unwanted child - - Страница 5

The first day at the children's educational centre started with an introduction, which took a week, maybe a week and a half in total. Familiarisation with his peers, new teachers, unusual rooms filled with all sorts of thematic subjects. For him, as for the overwhelming majority of kids, all this was strange. Children at that age have a lot of energy, which they gladly spend on lessons. There was not a single child in Theodore's group who was eager to go back home to his parents. On the contrary. When the children crossed the threshold of the centre, it was as if they had forgotten about their existence. And when the time came to return home, many of them did not want to do so. After all, here, in a gigantic entertainment complex (as the children saw the centre), all attention was directed only at them. A lot of different entertainments, games and adventures.

After distribution on groups, educators conducted some demonstration classes with participation of parents of kids. Many of them, as it was recommended earlier by the headmistress, supported the children showing them that everything was fine and they were there for them. The classes were more like the first lessons of communication and familiarisation. First with the tutors, then with the classmates. The parents also got to know each other at this meeting and watched their children's behaviour with smiles.

Each group was in its own room. The children were seated in a circle on small stools. At the head of this circle at twelve o'clock level, sitting on the floor was the tutor Theodora. He was assigned to Mrs Donova. She was about forty-five years of age. The woman's black coloured hair was, tied in a small ponytail at her back. Dressed in an elegant bright blue business suit, consisting of a jacket and a long skirt, she looked at her pupils with a smile, radiating only positivity and warmth. Her experience in educating preschoolers totalled about twenty years. This woman knew exactly what good upbringing was, having trained and graduated seven groups. The age of the educator allowed her to apply previously studied methods of education, which have become classics, but also to improve their qualifications, quietly mastering new ones, not lagging behind the progress.

At first, the children fussed, getting up from their chairs, running around the room, crawling on the floor, not paying any attention to their new yet unfamiliar teacher. She chatted patiently with each of them, settling them back into their seats. Then she took out from her pocket some object that looked like an unusual pen shimmering with different colours, thus attracting attention to herself. Loud, surprised children's cries began to echo around the circle.

Ms Donova: ‘So, let's get acquainted! My name is Ms Donova. We will be talking and studying with you over the next few years. Let's get to know each of you better.’

She clicked one of the buttons on her mysterious pen and dimmed the lights in the room to semi-darkness. A spotlight came on over the circle in which the children were gathered. The floor inside this circle was coloured bright red, which was black striped into sectors according to the number of people inside it. It looked like a disproportionately marked clock with sixteen divisions. The teacher pressed the button of her fountain pen again and the sector she was in turned green. While the rest of the circle continued to burn red. The woman rose from her seat, and walked to the centre of the circle. The children watched the change of colours inside the circle with their eyes darting around in amazement. They kept shifting their gaze from the multi-coloured circle to the teacher holding a strange fountain pen in her hand.

Ms. Donova: ‘I want you, when you see the colour green in front of you, to come to the centre and say your name’.

She demonstrated what she wanted the children to do by example by repeating her surname. She then took her place in the circle and pressed the button again. The green sector moved anti-clockwise and positioned itself in front of the boy sitting next to her. He looked with interest at the glowing green triangle inviting him to take the first step. The teacher repeated her request, turning towards him, ‘Please come forward and tell me your name.’

The little boy got off his chair and with slow steps made his way to the centre of the circle, patting the glowing section. Donova repeated: ‘Tell me your name.’ The boy, merrily shaking his head from side to side, reached the centre of the circle and after a little stomping in one place said loudly and clearly, ‘Derek. My name is Derek!’

The pupil, with all his seriousness, looked at the teacher, waiting for her to praise him for his accomplished task. She nodded in response, clapped her hands and said: ‘Well done. Nice to meet you Derek. You can go back to your seat.’

The boy stood in the centre for a while longer, enjoying the attention and the sense of accomplishment, and with the same leisurely steps he reached his chair and then sat on it. So each of the kids introduced themselves in turn, stepping out into the circle. The one who was less concentrated and comprehensible Mrs Donova took him to the centre by the hand and repeated her request several times. Finally, it was Theodore's turn. His sector lit up green and everyone stared at him.

Ted understood perfectly well what he was required to do, so based on the example of the previous kids he leisurely went to the centre of the circle and said his name. After that he remained standing in the same place, scrutinising those present. Throwing a glance outside the circle, he noticed the parents of his classmates watching their every move with awe. Looking at one and the other, he tried to spot Lars in the crowd of people he didn't know, but he never found him.

At the age of three, children cannot yet analyse their parents' actions, build a logical chain and conclude whether they are well taken care of or not. They do not know how to take offence over the long term, as their life now consists of momentary emotions. For example, at the moment he feels good because he was given a lollipop, but five minutes later he feels bad because it was taken away. This was approximately the stage of development of the child logic of Ted and his classmates, which the teachers had to develop by the end of the CEC training and bring it to a completely different level.

Mrs Donova: ‘Theodore, you can take your seat. Let's give your other classmates a chance to introduce themselves.’

At the moment of finding his father among the crowd of people standing in front of the boy, strangers to him, he felt nothing. No sadness, no regret. The only thought circling in his head was that his dad wasn't around.

After a couple of small and uncomplicated orientation sessions, the teacher said goodbye to the parents and the group started the next lesson in the drawing room. On the first day, the children reacted differently to their parents leaving. Some cried and were hysterical, others were unwavering and didn't give it a second thought. Theodore felt some relief when the adults left the little ones alone with their teacher. Ted was no different from the other children now. The only difference was that when Lars left him home alone, the boy was left to his own devices. But now, there were other children in the same room with him. Some of them even began to socialise with each other, increasing the general interest in the task at hand.

On the one hand, it was another familiarisation task for the newcomers, which everyone could handle without much difficulty, as everyone in the group understood what a family was. On the one hand, it was another familiarisation task for the newcomers, which each of them could cope with without much difficulty, because everyone in the group understood perfectly well what a family was. Everyone except Theodore. The kids sat down on the colourful floor, armed with markers and pencils, and began to draw banal pictures of suns, clouds, circles and sticks resembling human beings. Davel was the only one who sat still and did not understand what he had to draw on a piece of paper. No one had ever talked to him about family. The boy saw the children around him drawing with interest, but he had no interest in the class. Several times Mrs Donova came up to him and explained the task again, sketching ideas and projecting them on her piece of paper.

The time of the class was drawing to a close, and Theodore's sheet of paper remained as blank as it had originally been. Finally, he picked up a dark brown pencil that was lying nearby and began to paint the sheet a solid colour, trying his best not to leave any white gaps. Maybe he was embarrassed that he was the only kid who hadn't drawn a picture, or maybe Ted just wanted to keep himself busy.

The children began to hand in their work to the teacher. The teacher came up to each of them in turn and accepted their work. Theodore handed her a piece of paper on which a rectangle had been carefully drawn with a brown pencil. He looked at the tutor, waiting for any reaction. Mrs Donova smiled at the boy, stroked his head and encouraged him: ‘Well, there, you see! You, too, have succeeded in your own way in drawing a picture on a given theme. In time, you'll learn a lot more from us here!’.

Ted smiled back when he felt that no one was going to scold him. He had done a thorough job in his own way and was being praised for it. On the wave of positivity that swept over him, the boy walked over to the other boys who, without the teacher's instruction, had arranged themselves in a circle and were drawing something together.

It was lunchtime for Theodore's group. The children, led by Mrs Donova, went up to the third floor to eat a three-course set lunch specially prepared for them for the first time in their lives. The canteen staff also joined in to help the kindergarteners in shrinking the students. It was extremely difficult for one adult to cope with the still unorganised group of kids who saw plates of food placed on small tables. Despite the fact that the children could already sit on ordinary chairs and stools, at the first stage, in order to teach them discipline, the canteen was equipped with seats with small straps that were pulled over the waist of the children and fixed them in one place, not allowing them to move freely around the room.

There was a lot of temptation at the beginning, as the food was served based on the usual diet of the pupils of the educational centre. It was balanced, filled with all the necessary useful vitamins and minerals to maintain their health. The food was adjusted individually, depending on whether a particular pupil was allergic to certain types of food, or simply because he or she refused to eat one or another product.

For example, if a child does not eat broccoli, it can easily be replaced by carrots or cabbage, thus preserving the vitamins that he or she should get after eating. All caring parents, in most cases, have prepared in advance and provided the principal with lists of foods to be more careful about and to avoid. In Theodore's case, there was no such list at all. Lars replied dryly when questioned by the headmistress: ‘Yes, he eats everything. You can feed him whatever you want.’

So Theodore had to personally try the delicacies of the children's kitchen and find out for himself what he liked and what he didn't like.

Ted was taken by the hand by one of the canteen workers and sat down at the end table, where there were three more tables besides his seat. In front of him was a white cardboard small rectangular container wrapped in foil to keep the food warm. To the right of the food container, was a plastic small spoon. Some already knew how to handle some other cutlery, such as a fork and knife. But in the early days, the educators did not want to load the children with unnecessary information and create conflict in the minds of those who were not yet familiar with such utensils. They assumed that the learning of sharp objects, even plastic ones, should be gradual, not immediate.

The children gradually took their places at the tables. Theodore, too, became more crowded. A girl was seated opposite him and two boys to his right. He had not yet remembered their exact names. A canteen worker approached each of the children in turn and helped them open the boxes of food. Even stronger, the smell of food wafted in. Barely perceptible clouds of vapour drifting from the dishes rushed towards the ceiling, mixing together in the air to form the aroma of the canteen. Inside the box, Theodore found baked fish with sour cream sauce on top and boiled rice mixed with eggs.

The children sitting at the same table with him began to look at each other's food, trying to assess the contents of the neighbouring boxes. Ted, on the other hand, sat curled up over his container, showing little interest in the other's food. Finally, armed with their spoons, they began dynamically munching away at the food that smelled so appetising, leaving no chance to refuse it.

The boy sitting next door was the fastest to finish his treat and impatiently started looking around for something interesting to occupy himself. When he noticed his neighbour eating leisurely, he decided to help him by shoving his spoon into his food container. Theodore was a little taken aback by this insolence, and in response to the boy's actions, he snatched the spoon from his hand and threw it far away from him. It flew a few metres, then landed with a distinctive sound on the floor and disappeared under one of the chairs of another group of children, who were a year older than Theodore's classmates. The little boy straightened up, stretched his neck and turned his head in the direction of the flying cutlery, trying to spot it. Then he waved his arms and wailed with all his might: ‘Ah-ah-ah-ah! Sp-o-o-o-o-n! My sp-o-o-o-o-o-n!’

The dining room had been noisy enough up to that point. But when the boy shouted his short phrase to the whole floor and began to scandalise, shouting unintelligible sounds, the group of children seemed to revolt. His little tantrum became like a call to action for the rest of the kids. Some started throwing food scraps at each other, others started shouting loudly, others started running around the tables and hiding under them. However, for the tutor and the canteen workers, who were used to working in similar conditions, these antics of the new pupils were not something out of bounds and unexpected. They began to pacify the overexcited group, putting them back in their seats, playfully suggesting that they finish their meal and wait for the others. Finally, when the children had settled down and most of the food had been eaten, Mrs Donova led everyone in an orderly fashion to the common room to prepare the children for sleep and restore their previously spent energy.

The children lined up in front of the escalator in rows of two. Some of them held each other's hands. The carer pressed a button on the side of the escalator to change its direction. Unlike similar mobile structures in shopping centres, this one had the slowest speed for safety reasons.

When they reached the first floor, the group made their way to the door, which had a sticker of a crescent moon with a sleeping baby on it. Theodore was one of the last to enter, along with the girl who had sat at the same dinner table with him earlier. Of course, none of the children were planning on falling asleep. They all wanted to play and have fun. And when they saw their cots, they decided that this room was just part of another entertaining game, like the one the boy who had thrown a tantrum in the dining room not long ago had started playing. His name was Eric, and he seemed to have forgotten all about the unpleasant incident. The boy chose a cot for himself, confidently climbed on it and began to jump as if on a trampoline. This boy was a peculiar leader of the group. Not afraid of anything, brave and self-confident. Once again, he came up with an idea for fun that the other children were eager to support when they saw it in practice.

In an instant, the silence that had hitherto reigned in the recreation room, supplemented by the peaceful music of nature, was filled with children's delighted shouts and the clatter of beds hitting the floor under the impact of jumping. Like the lifeguards that they partly were, Mrs Donova's assistants flew into the room. They were mostly young female students on teaching practice. They began to help the teacher to quiet the crowd of children, who were overflowing with activity and demanding fun and amusement.

Much to the children's dismay, their cots had already been determined in advance and their names were signed on each one. Therefore, they were deprived of the possibility to choose on this issue. All the babies were redistributed to their cots. More often than not, the beds were much larger than the size of an average three-year-old, as they were assigned to older children up to the age of six, who were already taller and larger than the younger preschoolers. The sounds of nature intensified, attracting the attention of the babies, the main light in the room went out, and the ceiling was transformed into a dark blue sky with stars sparkling on it, which from time to time went out and then appeared in a new place. The cots vibrated, tuning the children's hearts to the rhythm of their upcoming sleep. Some were still on their feet, leaning against the wooden barriers of the cot, others lay down, feeling tired.

Theodore sat on his knees with his legs tucked under him, looking up at the stars twinkling in the artificial sky. The music slowly began to fade until it was barely audible. The children's eyes began to close and they gradually began to fall into a deep sleep, full of colourful and unique visions filled with adventures. Mrs Donova quietly and subtly took a seat on a small stool near the entrance, guarding the dreams of her children. She pressed a small switch on the inside of the door and the sticker of a crescent moon with a baby hanging from it began to shimmer. The baby's mouth began to move and the letter ‘Z’ began to appear from time to time, slowly moving upwards. The crescent moon itself turned a bright yellow colour and tiny craters were clearly visible on it. This meant that this room was occupied at that particular moment. Please do not enter or disturb the others.

The Theodore group's afternoon nap lasted only 45 minutes. Another 15 minutes were allowed to lull the babies to sleep. After the allotted nap time, the ceiling began to change into a clear and blue morning sky. Yellow silhouettes of birds began to pass by now and then, chirping loudly and calling the sleeping babies to wake up. The sounds of the singing birds gradually grew stronger until there were no more slumbering children in the common room. Ted woke up almost as soon as the extraneous sounds came. In addition, with the help of the floodlights emitting artificial sunlight, the room grew brighter and brighter by the second until there was not a single dark corner left at all.

The children began to yawn, rising lazily to their feet. After a few seconds, the playpens of the cots began to slowly open, pushing aside like a folding accordion. The way was open. Not fully understanding why they had been awakened, the half-asleep kids headed towards the teacher who was waiting for them near the exit. Having organised the group into one slender line of two, the woman opened the door and led her pupils to the sports classes.

 The gym was located on the ground floor. It had an elongated rectangular shape with a marked area in the middle. The sports ground was outlined with a white line. At the ends stood children's small football goals, and in the centre was a giant red circle for martial arts. That is, the hall was simultaneously designed to teach all the available sports that existed in the world. The floor of the hall was covered with soft rubber to prevent injuries during sports. Along the walls were large gymnastic balls, jump ropes, cones and other ancillary equipment.

Mrs Donova's group entered the gym. The assistants, who were already waiting for them inside, began to undress the kids so that they would not get their shoes dirty on the clean pavement. The boys, who saw the mountain of footballs, immediately rushed to them. Most of the girls stood around wondering what all the boys were so excited about, and what could possibly be so interesting about this room. No wonder! It was often rare for girls to become athletes. The adult women's football league was small, consisting of only ten teams. And the fairer half of the sex went into battle even less often, for obvious reasons.

Of course, the children's physical education classes at the Children's Centre were of a general nature only, without any specialisation, and consisted mainly in maintaining a healthy lifestyle among children. If it was necessary to correct posture with specific exercises, an orthopaedist from the local rural hospital was invited. The children were taught sports by a children's coach, while the tutor kept order in the gym and, if necessary, helped to organise the children.

While most of the kids scattered around the room to study the sports equipment, Theodore began to look at the gym in detail. The door through which they had entered was at his back. He stood on the white marked line separating the playground from the rest of the space. The far side of the room had large rectangular windows upstairs through which sunlight streamed in, supplemented by interior light fixtures. In front of the boy were small white plastic football goals that were about 30 centimetres taller than he was. A white net was attached to the back of them. Opposite them, at the far end of the pitch stood exactly the same goal. Ted crouched down on the floor and with interest began pulling at the strings that made up the gate set. Woven together, they formed a diamond-shaped pattern that stretched from bottom to top, flowing from one quadrangular shape to another.

There was a click of the door opening. A children's coach entered the hall, smiling and winking at the budding athletes. The man was about forty years old, of medium height, with a short haircut, muscular and trim. Apparently a former athlete. Gathering the kids around him, the man introduced himself. His name was Mr Petrie. To be honest, he didn't really like it when the kids addressed him so formally, but there was nothing to be done. Rules are rules.

During the first lessons it was hard to organise the kids so that they obediently followed all the commands of their new coach exactly as intended. Therefore, just like the others, the first physical education lessons were only of an introductory nature, rather than any benefit for the young organism. Having spread out gymnastic mats on the ground, teachers tried to show the group basic warm-up exercises, which the latter were reluctant to perform. The kids were constantly distracted by extraneous objects and classmates, laughing and wiggling without stopping.

In the middle of the session, Mr Petrie removed all the extra balls from the playground and, leaving only one, started to encourage the children to play football with him, passing to each of them in turn. Some reacted to this gesture in a sporting way – kicking the ball away from themselves in the opposite direction, others fell to their knees, trying to take the round toy for themselves and run away from the man, and others did not pay any attention to this unknown game for them. Ted belonged to the third group of children. When the turn came to him, and a miniature football slightly hit his foot, he looked at it perplexedly and turned around and went the other way, as if avoiding repeated contact with it.

The coach was not upset by the fact that not everyone in this hall was interested in sports games. Firstly, he realised that they were still very young children. Secondly, not everyone is destined to become a professional athlete in the future. Most of all, Mr Petrie was surprised by a situation that happened to Theodore a year and a half later, when he was already a second-year student at the CEC. It was this situation that predetermined Ted's further enrolment in a sports school.