…. If the teachers in our town had a hard time with feral five-year olds, what was happening elsewhere, in communities that had much fewer resources? I was curious, so I proposed the topic to my editor. She gave me the green light, so I found some kindergarten teachers on a Facebook page and gave them a call. 

You know you have the right topic when you get on the phone with someone, ask one question and then they don’t stop talking for an hour. That’s what happened last month. 

The teachers told me that based on the behaviors that they saw this year, their kids were extremely, extremely isolated for two years. They knew that most had never been in daycare or pre-school. But they also suspected that some of the kids spent those two years in their apartment, watched only by a slightly older sibling, with no stimulation, no interactions with adults. They may have never left their apartment at all, even to go to Target.

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