WEBVTT 00:00:03.718 --> 00:00:06.468 A letter to school… 00:00:06.969 --> 00:00:08.570 To my primary school… 00:00:09.421 --> 00:00:10.802 confessions… 00:00:10.883 --> 00:00:11.989 remarks… 00:00:12.070 --> 00:00:13.289 or reports. 00:00:14.390 --> 00:00:16.281 Eva Koťátková… 00:00:16.362 --> 00:00:17.758 43 years old… 00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:20.031 174 centimeters… 00:00:20.112 --> 00:00:21.315 62 kilos. 00:00:22.353 --> 00:00:25.908 Or someone who daydreams and sleeps badly at night. 00:00:25.989 --> 00:00:27.572 After almost 30 years… 00:00:28.174 --> 00:00:29.931 Written: in my head. 00:00:30.438 --> 00:00:32.227 …requesting… 00:00:33.330 --> 00:00:34.713 I dream about you. 00:00:36.471 --> 00:00:39.299 At first it's as if I'm wearing earplugs. 00:00:39.986 --> 00:00:43.647 I see you lying partly on the grass and partly on the concrete. 00:00:43.728 --> 00:00:46.335 Your body has tentacle-like protrusions. 00:00:46.416 --> 00:00:49.563 They've repaired you several times in recent years. 00:00:50.345 --> 00:00:53.187 They put two types of fences around you. 00:00:53.725 --> 00:00:56.163 One metal, painted many times. 00:00:56.244 --> 00:01:01.076 The other living, pruned many times so it wouldn't grow wild and out of control 00:01:01.157 --> 00:01:03.851 or penetrate the building with its roots. 00:01:06.629 --> 00:01:09.640 Despite all the changes, I still recognize you. 00:01:10.829 --> 00:01:12.470 We have a lot in common. 00:01:13.026 --> 00:01:17.136 We even have the same birthday, only you're two years younger. 00:01:18.759 --> 00:01:20.425 The 1st of September. 00:01:21.875 --> 00:01:26.828 What does it mean when someone is born on the day they start school for the first time? 00:01:26.909 --> 00:01:30.024 …protects, is tidy… 00:01:30.105 --> 00:01:34.997 Soon it's as if a radio switches on in my head or my ears are unplugged. 00:01:35.078 --> 00:01:37.075 I hear sounds and voices. 00:01:38.464 --> 00:01:41.365 It's not easy to make sense of this cacophony. 00:01:42.250 --> 00:01:45.312 It's like a tingling in my head, perhaps in my whole body. 00:01:45.393 --> 00:01:46.644 Adults… 00:01:46.725 --> 00:01:48.262 children… 00:01:48.343 --> 00:01:49.861 leafing through books… 00:01:50.797 --> 00:01:54.357 running or walking, ringing, coughing, whispering… 00:01:54.969 --> 00:02:00.505 chairs creaking, water dripping from a tap, a broken radio, a chipped fingernail… 00:02:01.122 --> 00:02:02.486 a trampoline… 00:02:02.567 --> 00:02:07.426 a kettle humming, corridors being cleaned, the scraping of plates, air conditioning… 00:02:07.507 --> 00:02:11.723 …smoking is not allowed… 00:02:11.804 --> 00:02:14.904 I see the entrance as a maw on a long neck. 00:02:15.607 --> 00:02:17.740 Animals aren't allowed in here. 00:02:19.076 --> 00:02:20.482 Corridors… 00:02:21.185 --> 00:02:23.810 spaces for storing personal belongings… 00:02:24.567 --> 00:02:26.857 each body has its own locker here. 00:02:27.455 --> 00:02:30.571 It is not allowed… 00:02:31.309 --> 00:02:35.010 It is not allowed to bring… 00:02:35.091 --> 00:02:38.338 …distribute… 00:02:39.284 --> 00:02:44.557 …could endanger them… 00:02:45.887 --> 00:02:50.574 …off limits to bring… 00:02:51.184 --> 00:02:57.379 …to prepare to change clothes… 00:02:59.367 --> 00:03:05.570 The plants here may have it better than the people, even though they also have their designated space. 00:03:07.172 --> 00:03:08.489 …maintain… 00:03:08.570 --> 00:03:13.015 I see the gleaming floor that our teacher once made us mop after class 00:03:13.096 --> 00:03:15.507 so that it would shine like crystal. 00:03:16.022 --> 00:03:18.053 The smell of disinfectant is everywhere. 00:03:18.133 --> 00:03:19.725 …to talk… 00:03:19.806 --> 00:03:26.381 …he wanted to ask… 00:03:28.138 --> 00:03:33.849 …to answer when called on… 00:03:34.399 --> 00:03:36.407 …to stand up… 00:03:37.048 --> 00:03:41.033 In the classroom I automatically take a seat on the floor, out of sight. 00:03:41.114 --> 00:03:43.570 I like working free from the confines of a chair, 00:03:43.651 --> 00:03:47.617 without a desk dividing my body into upper and lower halves. 00:03:50.195 --> 00:03:55.991 The floor is a more democratic form of table— paws and claws can unexpectedly set foot on it. 00:03:57.358 --> 00:04:00.566 I gather a pile of textbooks, which are bound or glued together. 00:04:00.647 --> 00:04:04.022 I dismantle them into pages, and then the pages into smaller parts. 00:04:05.109 --> 00:04:10.225 This lets the images and texts be free for a moment before someone rearranges them. 00:04:10.306 --> 00:04:11.317 Again. 00:04:12.278 --> 00:04:18.669 And we can put other images or stories between them— ones that were previously unseen or unheard. 00:04:18.750 --> 00:04:22.045 …moving away… 00:04:22.126 --> 00:04:23.773 …do not… 00:04:23.854 --> 00:04:29.080 …they do not leave… 00:04:29.161 --> 00:04:33.365 …excuse oneself… 00:04:33.446 --> 00:04:36.828 …excuse oneself… 00:04:36.909 --> 00:04:39.406 …they behave… 00:04:39.487 --> 00:04:43.772 …they abide by… 00:04:43.853 --> 00:04:47.272 It's important to remember to breathe in and out. 00:04:49.166 --> 00:04:53.995 When they fill your head with information with no regard for your emotions or senses, 00:04:54.076 --> 00:04:57.029 it's easy to forget that you also have a body. 00:05:00.787 --> 00:05:06.552 How could you move differently in a place like this, with so many right angles, grids, and lines? 00:05:08.188 --> 00:05:13.094 And can the human body, which has so few right angles, feel good here? 00:05:15.058 --> 00:05:19.406 It's important to pay attention to the spaces we build for our bodies 00:05:19.487 --> 00:05:22.676 and what we want from these bodies of buildings. 00:05:22.757 --> 00:05:29.305 It's important to be mindful of how and what we learn if we care about the world we create by doing so. 00:05:30.100 --> 00:05:34.902 When someone points at a poster with an anatomical cross-section of an animal's body 00:05:34.983 --> 00:05:38.840 in order to teach us which parts of the animal are good for what, 00:05:38.921 --> 00:05:42.741 we are further conditioned to a culture of separation and extraction. 00:05:42.822 --> 00:05:44.496 …playing is not allowed… 00:05:44.577 --> 00:05:48.981 A sense of interconnectedness brings with it a sense of responsibility. 00:05:49.062 --> 00:05:54.129 When taking the fingerprints of a building/institution, we will surely find our own as well. 00:05:54.210 --> 00:05:55.343 And vice versa. 00:06:03.155 --> 00:06:05.168 Is it possible to dream here? 00:06:05.249 --> 00:06:09.790 Perhaps sometimes in the interim, during breaks, between classes? 00:06:09.871 --> 00:06:11.090 If so, then: 00:06:11.171 --> 00:06:16.254 Let's imagine learning that isn't confined to a single building or institution. 00:06:17.262 --> 00:06:19.629 We can change our guises as needed, 00:06:19.710 --> 00:06:24.628 operate outside of normative identities, free from the labels of normality and otherness. 00:06:24.709 --> 00:06:27.168 We can educate ourselves regardless of age, 00:06:27.249 --> 00:06:31.363 in a process of shared learning based on collaboration and dialogue. 00:06:32.449 --> 00:06:36.025 We can bring our own stories, stories of lived experience, 00:06:36.106 --> 00:06:41.931 and work with a range of perspectives, the principle of sharing, and pluralism. 00:06:42.012 --> 00:06:45.641 We can critically examine but also dream up other, better worlds 00:06:45.722 --> 00:06:51.496 and consider how to achieve them, whether we have hands, tentacles, or fins. 00:06:55.621 --> 00:07:00.238 …to visit can… 00:07:00.949 --> 00:07:04.736 …go to the entrance… 00:07:04.817 --> 00:07:09.079 You may not even realize it, but you're with me everywhere I go. 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:11.309 You're passing through my digestive tract. 00:07:11.390 --> 00:07:14.415 Education leaves lasting traces in the body. 00:07:14.496 --> 00:07:17.972 Some things can be shed, some must be arduously unlearned, 00:07:18.053 --> 00:07:20.868 and some remain in the body without us even knowing it. 00:07:20.949 --> 00:07:22.954 …required… 00:07:23.035 --> 00:07:25.417 Don't you want to rebuild yourself overnight? 00:07:25.498 --> 00:07:29.972 Turn yourself inside out, open all the windows, and thoroughly air yourself out? 00:07:30.053 --> 00:07:34.175 Perhaps animals could settle in you for the winter, perhaps you could be a flophouse, 00:07:34.256 --> 00:07:38.176 while a group of children wander a housing estate with their backpacks, learning in the field? 00:07:38.257 --> 00:07:44.181 Maybe you could let the kids paint you and decide for themselves what to put on the bulletin board? 00:07:44.262 --> 00:07:48.118 Perhaps you could let the trees grow through you, so that you become a forest school, 00:07:48.199 --> 00:07:53.925 the kind that is aware of its roots and branches, of its connection to the world and within the world. 00:07:55.238 --> 00:08:00.019 Maybe you could take some time off to recharge and figure out what to do next. 00:08:00.973 --> 00:08:06.147 Maybe you could try to unlearn yourself and remember to breathe while doing so. 00:08:06.228 --> 00:08:10.068 Perhaps you could invite everyone who has passed through you over the years, 00:08:10.149 --> 00:08:13.264 as well as those who are attending you now, and ask them: 00:08:13.345 --> 00:08:14.842 How do you feel about me? 00:08:14.923 --> 00:08:19.152 Or how did you feel about me, and what would you like to see change? 00:08:19.233 --> 00:08:24.217 How can I be the body and support that you want, the one you choose for yourselves? 00:08:24.943 --> 00:08:27.559 How can I truly be your space? 00:08:28.681 --> 00:08:30.726 A space you shape together? 00:08:31.687 --> 00:08:36.008 …studies diligently… 00:08:36.089 --> 00:08:38.188 …works… 00:08:38.269 --> 00:08:41.731 …doesn't copy… 00:08:41.812 --> 00:08:43.711 …doesn't… 00:08:43.792 --> 00:08:47.226 …doesn't give hints… 00:08:47.307 --> 00:08:51.661 …couldn't prepare… 00:08:51.742 --> 00:08:54.148 …couldn't…

Jakub Kučera