Petra Mecnerova teaches children to take care of friendships, October 2021

Good friendships are not a given. Petra Mecnerova teaches children how to take care of such a friendly relationship.

HY Worker Petra Mecnerova with children during the game.

The children play various movement games with Petra and everyone is eager to join in.

When I met Petra before eight o’clock in the morning near the primary school, in addition to the good mood, she was also equipped with a number of assorted aids essentially needful for the program being prepared.

Though Petra has been going to schools already for many years and belongs to very experienced HY Workers, she still radiates a kind of “primary love” for this craft, which is reflected both in her careful preparation for meeting with concrete age group of children and also in her verbal and non-verbal expressions toward children.

We are entering the classroom of the first-graders, the youngest inhabitants of the school, and the children already suspect that today will not be just any day.

In the next two lessons, they will not learn ordinary school material!

Nevertheless, certainly several powerful moments will happen that will teach them to something important into life.

Her helpmate The Monkey goes to classes with Petra. She can easily capture not only children, but also adults.

The theme of today’s program is “Friendship and relations between classmates” and that’s something, which essentially touches them.

It is also clear from the outset that this will not be just a mere narration. During the program the children enjoy various games, activities or techniques focused on mutual communication.

Then Petra introduces to children the puppet of a monkey and later also of the caterpillar. Through animal stories, Petra gives children space to be able to realize and experience their own stories. They can also bring their stories to the common space and learn to solve them in the best possible way.

The children say goodbye to Petra and The Monkey.

At the end of the program, the children have to say goodbye in person… mainly to The Monkey, but of course also to Petra. Everyone is already impatiently looking out for a possible next meeting.

We together dive into a fairy tale and Petra stops the story by gradual “cuts” and lets children finish it. Children are literally tangibly drawn into the action, as we adults into a thrilling detective story or teenagers into a computer game. Maybe it is also thanks to that, that also the teachers are involved in Petra’s game.

Spontaneously, there also occur several “appeasing” reactions among the children, who immediately want to put into practice the theory they have just heard. Such situations unambiguously cannot be planned! Maybe neither Petra expected what the program causes; it came like from heaven.

When we say goodbye at the end, most of the children still on the break are standing in the queue, in order to say goodbye to the monkey puppet and Petra.

Children with Petra are sitting in a circle.

It may be hard to believe, but the children at Petra’s program can really calm down, respectably sit down in a circle and talk about important issues.

In parallel first grade everything goes very similarly.

Of course, the children are different, so stories and situations develop differently. However, Petra can improvise very well.

Thanks to that, I witnessed two different discussions with an equally strong atmosphere.

After the second discussion, the class teacher asked me enthusiastically:
“Does Petra play in some theatre? The way she played and changed the voices and so on… it was such an experience.!” Even for me as a long-term HY Worker, it was an experience that inspired and motivated me to continue my work.

Martin Stavjanik, the Authorised Supervisor of the HY Program workers

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