2026-03-18
45 分钟This is The Guardian.
The Guardian Archive Long Read.
Hi, my name is Aida Damaryam.
I'm the author of 'Parents are Frightened for Themselves and for Their Children.'
An inspirational school in impossible times, which was published in 2022.
So this piece came out of the moment just after the pandemic,
when schools were opening and everybody was going back to work.
There was a lot of talk about how children had been affected,
and it seemed like a good time to actually talk to some children
and talk to people who worked with them all the time
to see exactly what was going on.
I also had a child in primary school and I was very aware of
how uneven to non-existent some of the provision had been.
So on a basic level, you're not really allowed into schools for very good reasons.
I'd spent years dropping off and picking up
and just not really knowing what happened in between.
So partly it was just nosy curiosity, but partly there was...
Also a belief which I feel quite strongly that
how we treat our children says a lot about us
and would say it quite a lot about the society in which we now live.