Children's wandering through distance education: the relationship between pandemic and stagnant subjectivities

ABSTRACT

The study shows an overview of school experiences after implementing the distance learning modality derived from the COVID-19 health emergency from the perspective of 25 elementary school students from urban and rural schools in Chiapas, Mexico. We built our research on an interpretative, hermeneutic approach while conducting semi-structured interviews based on the children's schoolwork. This combination made possible the configuration of three analytical categories "The pandemic as a bat's broth," which examines the conception of the health emergency, the process of disease and death;"I learn by being glued to the screen," about distance school work and the personal and family vicissitudes behind this dynamic;and "The confinement and the habitation of psychic space," which reflects on the experiences of students about their family relationships, the demands and emerging alterations in the face of confinement. These approaches make us reflect on whether the pandemic amplified children's education problems since the discursive evidence and school performance indicate tension and conflict in the study participants. Finally, we discuss the alternative of managing these experiences through words since symbolizing them can be a means of containment.