I was born in the village of Purcăreni, in Brașov, and I have four brothers. We were the only Roma family in the village.
I remember how, in kindergarten, I didn't feel safe and my classmates humiliated us and didn't let us play with the newest nor the most beautiful toys. Then, in primary school, the teacher often spoke very ill of my mother: "Why doesn't your stinky mummy buy you crayons?". I was scared of her, and I would have loved it if she had been gentle and would have hugged me even once!
In middle school, there were also a few teachers who smiled at me, brought me clothes, and that encouraged me to keep going. I wanted to be just like the other kids in the village and "become something in life", as my father said. In high school, I hoped it would be better, but I was disappointed yet again. Most of the teachers were unfair and my classmates marginalized me and sometimes even hit me.
However, with the help of some teachers who encouraged me, I passed my Baccalaureate exam and then graduated Sociology and Education Science.
In 2012 I chose to be a teacher in the Gârcini neighborhood in Săcele, the largest Roma community in the country. It is home to around 8,000 souls who are afraid to assume their identity because of discrimination. Most of them are poor, large families who work in sanitization services, in a few firms, and others are day laborers or pick plants and berries.
A small proportion of adults even today still cannot read and write and therefore cannot help their children with their homework. However, they bring them to school clean, with a sandwich in their backpacks, and encourage them to learn and be obedient in class. Some parents even make four trips a day to bring their children, one by one.
Aspirations are modest here, or so it might seem to some of us. Most boys and girls from Gârcini want to become drivers. Every family wants to be more affluent, meaning to have a bathroom and two rooms, so that parents and children can sleep separately. To have a new pair of sneakers, socks, a backpack and a jacket for school. There are also families who don't send their children to kindergarten when they don't have anything to put in their lunchbox, therefore I have in my bag something for them every day.
This year I have the ”big group” with 29 children, but none of them have attended the ”middle group” regularly. Either they didn't adapt, or their parents didn't bring them, and it shows in their development level. I remember that a few years ago I worked with a big group from Baia Mare. The children there were able to improvise a story, a common activity for their age, unlike my children, who hardly managed to create anything.
In this year's assessments, I've noticed that many of my students don’t know how to hold a pencil in their hands, have a hard time recognizing the numbers from 1 to 5 or counting to 10 without help. Ianis, a boy from a poorer family, managed to count on his own, giving me hope that if we provide children with a nurturing environment, they can grow harmoniously.
I have learned this on my own. Negative experiences with my teachers determined me to act differently with my children from kindergarten. I want each and every one of them to feel welcomed, loved and safe, therefore every day I smile at them, pat them on their head and say something nice.
And I also learned from my own experience that this method works, because when I got in 5th grade, I too had a teacher who spoke to me calmly and smilingly, I admired her and I loved learning her subject. And that helped me become somebody in life.
