Dealing the little zombies from Covid-land

One day we were all at school and the next day the world was kind of flipped up-side down. The lighting strike like transition from classroom learning at school to digital learning through phones, tabs and again being back to school has not only stir confusion in the mind of the children but they are lost in the middle of the transition, not getting anywhere yet.

The start of the school year after two long year’s gap of physical school has been overwhelming for parents, teachers and our children.

In my  long years of teaching career, this I agree that though a challenge it was, being apart of the  virtual teaching journey during the lock-downs and also limping back to  physical school this year has made me feel fortunate enough to have personally experience the paradigm shift in teaching and learning.  I have deeply felt and seen the learning gaps our children had to jump into because of the global health crises. When I said learning gaps, it is inclusive of all – round development of a child and not solely academics.

Taking online classes during the lockdown was a hassle at first for the students, the teachers and parents as well. None of us were prepared for that digital mode of teaching-learning. I remember attending calls after calls to explain the process of joining live classes on Skype and Google classroom to the parents during the first phase of swinging into online classes, as most of the parent weren’t accustomed to it.  And also, the crazy roller-coaster ride during online exams with the cameras turned on and we invigilating on the other end of the screen while our students were becoming Shakespeare and Einstein overnight with some of them soaring up their grades to 80-90%. Only to later discover who and how they wrote so well in the exams when the first off-line exams were conducted and the A grades flew out of the window and came down to D grades.  There weren’t many loopholes though to fill for those students who were consistent in scoring well academically whether online or offline.  Such was the academic learning gap, we all knew but didn’t have full-accession and control.

 Some classes went by like that just asking “Am I audible?” while some passed by quieting the students   who had bombarding background sounds during the classes. By the end of the first phase of online classes, some of our children were already addicted to phones: the phones that bridged the learning gaps but dug a huge communication gap between us and our children.

What happened when they returned back to class after two long years of online schooling?

The early months right after schools re-opened was a disaster; a pandemic-made disaster.

Classrooms no longer looked and felt like classrooms with our locked-down online processed students.

The first challenge for the teachers at school was the task of re-orienting the minds of the children back to classroom manners and etiquettes which they have long forgotten. The relentless leaning on the desk naturally from the amount of online screen times they had while attending lectures or taking down notes. Some children came back with terrible stage fright, unwilling to face and speak in front of two people in any physical gathering.

I still feel funny recalling the early few days when we had to cope with out-of-the world manners in the classroom like :  crossing their legs and hanging it on the desk so comfortably, lazing on the desk, drinking water/juice whenever they feel  like as though  they all came for picnic, singing random songs when classes are still on, moving in and around the class whenever they wish to and endless habits they have unknowingly got used on their journey through the online classes.

Online schoolings did achieve the goal of completing the syllabus or course on time but it cannot divulge into the etiquettes physically taught in the classroom. No online teacher had the time or opportunity to check if the student was sitting properly while writing down the notes, if the lines are drawn straight, if the notebooks were maintained neatly or so on.  So were the parents at home who were compelled to become self-discovered teachers and they themselves were in dilemma on how to handle the new pandemic school that shifted so abruptly to their bedrooms.  

Parents did their best, teachers went extra miles while students were in emotional turmoil not knowing if they would ever get to have fun in real school.

Online schoolings  to some extend had bridge the learning gaps but we cannot deny the fact that bookish learning alone cannot suffice in developing the social traits of a person and making a child learn discipline and be a good human being.

I am obvious most of us would agree that the pandemic made it crystal clear that nothing can substitute physical schooling.

It’s almost half the year and we are still trying our best limping back with the unruly zombies from the covid-apocalypse.