Francisco Miraval
I am tired of killings, attacks, coups, ambushes, massacres, and corruption. All those violent and despicable acts now happen in such a rapid succession it is impossible to understand who did what where and why. For that reason, I want to move beyond just lamenting tragedies. I want to focus on hope. I want to know what’s his/her name and how old he/she is.
Recently I met Pedro almost by chance. I don’t know if that’s his name, but that’s the name he used. He told me he is 7 and I have to reasons to doubt it.
Whatever the case, Pedro (or whichever name you want to use for him) is a real person, son of immigrants, who lives in a low-income neighborhood near Denver. We met at a community event.
We talked about many things during the first few minutes, mostly about school, brothers and sisters, friends, videogames and movies. At this point, his answers were mere monosyllables: Yes, No, and Hmm. When the conversation reached a point nobody was saying anything, he suddenly said, “Are you going to ask me what I want to be when I grow up? Everybody asks me that question”.
I told him I would not ask him that question, but that, regardless, I wanted to hear his answer.
“A paleontologist”, he said.
“That’s nice! Congratulations! So, do you like dinosaurs? Do you like T-Rex?”, I asked.
“I don’t like T-Rex because everybody knows T-Rex and its name it is easy to say. I like other dinosaurs, such as the brachiosaur and the diplodocus. And there are even more complicated names I will not mention now”, he answered.
“Do you like that dinosaur with huge plates on its back?”, I asked.
“Do you mean the stegosaur? Yes, I like it. I also like dinosaurs with long necks and also those with horns, like the triceratops. I make dinosaurs folding and painting paper. I want to study volcanos, lava, and meteorites to see how dinosaurs were killed,” he explained.
I then asked Pedro how he had learned so many things about dinosaurs at school. And he told me that nothing of what he learned about dinosaurs was learned at school. “There are almost no dinosaurs and no art at my school”, he lamented.
In fact, he is self-taught, having watched videos in YouTube and documentaries on Netflix. He also plays games about dinosaurs, so he can learn math (comparing the weight or the dimensions of the dinosaurs) and reading and writing (How many words you can write with the letters of “stegosaurus”?)
He is only 7. After discovering (so it seems) the passion of his life, he decided to teach himself what he wanted to learn using the resources at hand and without waiting for “school” to teach him. The result, I can testify, is simply amazing.
Is there any hope for this world? Yes, if respect the dreams of every Pedros of any age or gender, so they never stop dreaming and learning.