We trust doctors. We trust firemen. We are failing to trust teachers, and this is where we have to change our vision to show our children, where to look and see.
In the last 16 months, children are away from their schools disrupting their routine and support system outside the home. The cancellation of classes, academic backlog, and uncertainty about examinations have had a psychological impact on children & parents along with educators. Other factors such as staying indoors, adapting to online classes have increased the sense of isolation among children, leading to anxiety and disappointment & there we need to strengthen children’s voice through deeper engagement.
One of the service-oriented sectors which hit badly today is the educational sector, especially ECCE & Primary. Worldwide, Covid has pushed the education system towards collapse. The framework of learning, assessment & teaching techniques have been affected badly resulting in a shift to online/virtual education, The pandemic has transformed the centuries of old teaching methods, chalk-talk teaching models into one driven by technology. In India, school closures have impacted around 247 million children enrolled in Elementary and Secondary schools & about 28 million pre-school children in Early childhood sectors. It also hampered all the stakeholders into this profession, commercially & morally. Less than 40 per cent of the population had access to the internet, thus making it extremely difficult for the rest of the students to continue learning.
COVID-19 has radically reshaped our world, thought & perception. Schools started thinking of ways to continue student learning in the short and long term & during that phase when schools are just clueless about the fees to be paid to staffs, teachers, and maintenance expenses along with the new technology to understand & to deliver the need of a different set of skills in teaching method. Questions on acceptance & accessibility from parents’ part especially from the rural populations, small towns & cities was challenging too.
Pre & Primary schools suffering mostly, as learning & development is completely based on motor, social & cognitive activities. Overall, schools largely chosen from one of three options, decided on the local level by school boards, parents and as per Government rules, that is Virtual (a part of a Child’s Individualized Education Program), Interactive / Flip classrooms & Cohort Offline classes in batches with enhanced health and Covid safety protocols. Returning to school has taken on new meaning and a new set of worries for parents and school management, where we waiting for the vaccines & alternatives.
Virtual Classroom execution gradually upgrading in education adopting an engaging model of teaching module by digital tools to execute a framework that allows students to be successful inside and outside the classroom including all the components of learning as per age need & collaborating all the stakeholders in the overall edification. Many parents have reported that learning from home has given their child, the opportunity to work at their own pace. It is helping the child to move through that lesson independently. Students can vocalize watching the videos helping them to understand the content with the assignments. Parents also can have access to the same information helping with the accountability. Students seem to feel more positive when it comes to reviewing or revise and it has increased overall confidence when using science or language in the classroom. To ensure the child is linked with the learning support & well- being which is always essential & Parent’s role comes here to engage and ascertain to educate their child and cannot align enough for the outcome!
We didn't accept technology very easily in the beginning. We started to navigate, seeking to validate & make aware to the parents to understand the value of technology in need, to bridge the gap between the facts and opinion. Never forget that technology can break the monopoly and we are keeping ourselves ready for all the odds.
In addition, it’s giving the teaching fraternity, the opportunity to continue teaching, in time professional development & re-prioritizes the curriculum to re-module & reconfigure. Educators are becoming creative and innovative every day. Rather than giving a ready curriculum to a child, he is getting space to create & colour his own imagination rather, imposed. Moral values and science experiments are transforming to value-added practices and conceptual home assignments. Literacy is to comprehend, evaluate, analyses & a critical thinker to understand & explore, not just learn numbers or letters. Reading & writing significance should be done on formative years of development, including the ages of 4, 5, 6, which help them to articulate concepts accurately & increase the ability to communicate. We have to remember if the right or adequate stimulus is not given (home-schooling/hybrid schooling) then we have to hold the year for the student. We become more resilient. We realize the need for high-quality Teachers & technologies to deliver better output.
A teacher will never be done away, they will be guides & mentors always with competence. Technology is merely argumentation to a teacher. It can help the process of learning, but it certainly cannot replace the role of the teacher.
