Along with the school year, the idea of a class excursion to a 9-year school began.
But it's not done yet. First there were the viruses, then the rain, later the teachers couldn't... and a class of 10, 12, 15 year olds waits, dreams, gets bored, gets disappointed.
Since last September, these children have been downloading materials from the internet, printing them out, pasting them onto sheets of paper, and memorizing them: history, geography, literature, famous figures of our country. But this work ends up, at best, in a school drawer — at worst, in a bin by the yard door.
I don't want to talk today about the importance of socialization that extracurricular activities bring.
But it is urgent: school curricula must be enriched with such activities.
We cannot ask children to memorize patriotic poems, put them in a competition to recite them — often in a pathetic and out-of-date manner — and think that this is enough to educate them with patriotic sentiment.
Until that day, this remains our duty: that of parents.
Just yesterday UNESCO declared the Marubi Archive a World Heritage Site. How many of us have taken our children to this museum?
Have we ever visited the Gjon Milli Museum in Korça, the Independence Museum in Vlora, the 'Kokalari Museum' in Gjirokastër, the Onufri Museum in Berat, or the Ethnographic Museum in Kruja?
Every last Sunday of the month, admission to museums and archaeological sites is free. So the argument for expensive tickets falls apart.
We cannot raise children without a sense of belonging to our culture, history, and heritage.
Big Basta says in the last song: “And when 'Mora fështe' is played, we love our country.” But that's not enough. It's good to visit the legendary house of the Jashars as well.
