Back to School

 

With some students 

The other day I was walking from a shop to my car that was in the parking lot when a group of young girls waved at me from the roadside where they were waiting for a bus. They and I were wearing the pandemic masks like everyone else in the public spaces of Kerala. The masks steal people’s identity. At first I thought the girls were waving at somebody else. As I approached them, they greeted me and I knew they were my students. But I couldn’t recognise even one of them. I had never seen them in real life. The classes have all been online so far. I loved the sparkle in their eyes.

On November 1, Kerala’s birthday, the schools in the state are set to reopen at least partly and with a lot of restrictions and precautions. I’ll be delighted to meet my students in person. A year and a half of online teaching has been an agony without even a shade of any ecstasy. You never know whether you are talking to real people at all. More often than not, there is no response when you call out names. Online examinations have been big disappointments. Worst of all, there was practically no interaction in the class. It was a monologue with me doing all the talking and silence booming when I seek responses.

My students belong to the middle class mostly and hence they could afford to attend the online classes. They possessed the technology required. If they did not make use of the technology properly, it’s their fault. Many must have found the temptation to play online games during class hours irresistible. Many were candid enough to admit that when I engaged in casual conversations with them occasionally.

There were many other students who just couldn’t access the technology. According to a UNO report, as many as 140 crore students from 125 countries were affected adversely by the pandemic. They couldn’t attend classes regularly because they just didn’t have the means. Most of these students belong to Africa and South Asia (including India).

It will be a big challenge for teachers to pick up from where their students are. First of all, teachers will need to find out where their students are. Their brilliant performances in online assessments may turn out to be mirages. Their intellectual potentials might be captive to online games. [Many of my grade eleven students argued in favour of online games when I asked them to speak one minute each on certain topics. They admitted that they spend immense time on those games which, they argued, improved their intellectual and instinctive and other forms of ‘smartness’.] Moreover, they may have to be taught certain social skills from the scratch. It will be quite a challenge for the teachers.

Online education may hold out some benefits, on the other hand. Students as well as teachers have become more familiar with the digital technology and its multifarious uses. Now this technology can be put to great use in the real classroom work too. It’s not necessary to follow the traditional teaching methods anymore since a lot of such work can be assigned through Google classroom and other platforms and the time gained can be employed for better purposes.

Flipped learning is a concept that was mooted about two decades before Covid-19 shut down schools. It seeks to engage the students more actively through group work, research and student presentations. Students can do research using online material and make presentations in the class. Learning will become really student-centred. The teacher becomes a facilitator instead of the traditional pedagogue. Most importantly, each student will have the opportunity to scale the peaks he/she is capable of.

I look forward to Nov 1 with a lot of enthusiasm. I hope my students will share my enthusiasm. The sparkle in the eyes of the girls I met the other day on the roadside warms the cockles of my heart.

A former student visited us the other day - lot of cheers

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