I am a teacher. I went from teaching little ones to walk to accompanying slower walks, from pushing strollers to pushing wheelchairs, with endless stories to tell. The learning goals changed, what we value changed, and now bringing happiness, listening to a tango or a cumbia, and saying a heartfelt prayer are what drive my days. I realized that I didn’t study pedagogy only for children: today I use it with older adults living with dementia to give them a little more quality of life.
I accompany lives that, for many in our society, no longer have value, but that for others are their whole reason for being. They are the grandparents, the “papitos,” or whatever endearing name we use for them, the ones who tell the same story a thousand times, and to whom I sit down and listen every single day.
The activities changed. Instead of teaching from scratch, I now help them remember what they already knew. Many react with surprise, others with admiration or frustration, and I encourage them to keep going. Many people would say how easy it is to cut, to paint, to throw a ball, but that is where I understood that life is so short and fleeting that even those things can become difficult. That a book read together can sound more beautiful to those listening, and that a simple “good morning” can brighten more hearts than anything else.
Being a teacher has given me the sensitivity to understand that, in this context, we also need someone to guide us, someone to remind us how to do things, someone to help us connect with reality again, even if only for a moment. It is in this profession that I discovered we can be flexible, we can change how we see our daily work, and that children are not the only ones who need cognitive stimulation.
