The post-COVID-19 situation is complex and the ‘where we left it’ approach will not work for any stage of schooling
When children return to class after an unprecedentedly long hiatus, many of their teachers realize that teaching will be difficult. And there are some who believe that it will be business as usual. In fact, they have already started teaching from the ‘where we left it’ point, which means where they were in their online classes. Teachers who stick to the curriculum, no matter what happens in the outside world, prefer to identify themselves as teachers of this or that subject. They see their role purely in terms of the knowledge they enable children to acquire. They see the aim of education as success in examinations and consequently success in life. With a sense of purpose so firmly in their mind, such teachers stay away from children’s private life, especially its emotional aspect. We can understand how such teachers define learning according to the prescribed curriculum as given in the textbook. There is no harm in admitting that this type of teacher is the majority in the profession.
Although in a minority, there are other teachers who feel that education is more than just completing curriculum to prepare children to face examinations. These teachers know that their success as a teacher depends on how they relate to the children, whatever the subject they teach. For this reason, they worry about the emotional well-being of their children. When a child is not feeling well, such teachers ask what is wrong. They recognize individual differences and engage with children as individuals with distinct habits of mind and behaviour. For such teachers, the world outside the school matters as it affects the children, their spirit and enthusiasm towards what is being taught to them in the classroom. For such teachers, long gaps in their daily routine interactions with children due to the novel coronavirus pandemic have created problems in resuming teaching. They know that 17 months without being taught in a physical classroom has had a strange effect on themselves and on the children they teach.
gap effect
Several obvious reasons can be cited. What has been widely discussed falls under a poorly conceptualized title: ‘learning impairment’. If young children cannot read at the level they attained before the pandemic hit, it can hardly be described as a loss. The terminology of harm and benefit sounds natural in our time, but it is inappropriate to discuss children and their development in school. When they are young, children do not easily keep what they picked up for long unless it is put to daily use. This is as true of the convenience of reading as it is to the intellectual ability to understand, analyze and judge. However, the facility achieved a return once it was needed again – in situations that are not at risk. And this is where our systemic conditions create a problem.
These situations encourage teachers to be impatient and irritable. For those who have never worked in any school in our country, it is not easy to understand and cope with the nature of stressed teachers. It is so common that it cannot be attributed to a single source, such as a principal or a parent. Pressure to perform is a factor in ethos and ethos does not differentiate between younger and older children. From the day a child enters the school, he/she comes under this pressure. A minority of teachers feel it is unsuitable for development in the primary years, but these teachers have little impact on others. Pervasive social culture and government norms push a child to higher levels of performance from the very first month of school.
One doubts that this pressure will shape the classrooms where most children return after the COVID-19 hiatus. It will be difficult for many of them to engage in math or language at a higher level of proficiency in solving problems than they may feel comfortable with. This will be seen as a sign of weakness and normal measures will be taken to suppress such signals. Spatial measures for our system are increased drill, trained mass north-parrot and tougher preparation for trials. Each one of these measures will be counterproductive to a child’s development when classes resume and the dreaded full steam returns.
The teachers I put in the second category above, that is, those who try to relate to the children personally and not only teach them, there will be some who can reasonably predict that in the long run, the children What kind of psychological problems can you face? COVID-19 closing schools. The total evacuation of a place so closely associated with childhood must have certainly been difficult for a lot of children to bear. These would include children who may not have enjoyed their daily chores in school and the curriculum as much, as well as many children who may be online in their progress, despite the relentless stress it brought them.
effect of online mode
Digital learning is known to bring with it some addictive behaviors that can persist in school and carry new and disturbing mutations. When children return to school, they may well feel unbalanced, experiencing a supernatural sense of deprivation that comes to mind after an exam is over. It would be completely wrong for teachers to assume that such children would simply continue with the rest of the curriculum, although this would not be clear later.
Access to online learning was extremely limited in most regions, and an even more limited value for its recipients. The idea that teaching has been switched to online mode only was little more than a myth. That nothing else could be done was another myth. Why schools were absolutely the last priority to reopen, less than shopping malls, says something about the importance attached to education. In many other countries, after periodic closures, every effort was made to help schools operate. Nor were primary teachers given other duties at airports and vaccination centers in other countries. It is difficult to explain why the mid-day meal was stopped along with teaching. Nor is it possible to estimate the loss caused by hunger. There is no estimate so far as to the number of children who have dropped out of school altogether.
Now that schools have finally reopened, educationally better states, for example, in the South, need to recognize two new priorities. Both aspects of children’s psychological comfort are generally ignored in our system. If little attention is given to this, it will increase the readjustment after long intervals without each other’s consistency for both the children and the teachers.
space for these priorities
The first of these two priorities is a place for the arts: music, painting, theater and dance. The aesthetic experience has great healing powers, especially when it is not focused too much on performance or ceremonial purpose. If state governments and private schools can devote resources and time to this otherwise marginalized sector, they will make the resumption of regular school life more wholesome. The second priority for the restoration of the school is the restructuring of this year’s curriculum. The ‘where we left it’ approach will not work for any stage of schooling. A linear curriculum coverage approach does not serve children well, even in normal times. The post-COVID-19 situation is so complex that the wooden pedagogy stuck to prescribed textbook chapters cannot be answered. A team of subject-matter experts and teachers should sit together to look at the curriculum designed for each grade level and consider ways to reorganize it for this unusual academic session.
Krishna Kumar is a former director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). He is the author of the book ‘Smaller Citizens’.
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