CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

This post is dedicated to all my fellow teacher friends.

As the year of Covid started, came upon us many new challenges to deal in the Education industry too.

While most of us were worried knowing situation was worsening ahead, likelihood of job losses in each sector, non returning students from other countries back to what they call as their current home, more and more parents withdrawing students from the schools thinking homeschooling over rolling zoom classes with sometimes uninvited guests in the middle of a lesson, crippled teachers with inadequate training on delivering lessons in a virtual mode and unscathed comments from parents and students alike, this was a challenge which was not easy to take on.

A challenge not just teaching virtually and connecting with the students, but also bringing in the value over an interface that was remote, unattached and sometimes literally disconnected. The Covid-19 pandemic completely disrupted the lives of all the students, teachers, parents and families.The developed countries were better prepared to go online with learning and teaching methodologies whilst some poorer nations had to completely halt the process for a while. 

Challenges for Schools

In these unforeseen times, a big challenge for school was how to continue quality education despite government mandated closures.  The immediate effect was on upgrading of the operational systems, training of teachers to deliver lessons online and ensuring families to adopt to new ways of learning from homes, a makeshift set up for ensuring connectivity and learning. Post reopening of schools, schools were challenged how to allow large movement of pupils to be safe in the school premises. The schools needed to maintain high hygiene standards, safe distancing while maintaining continuous un-interrupted lessons with efficacy by mask or shield donned teachers still supporting the learning needs of the students. The schools need to reinvent the whole purpose of making itself available to the students with a lot more flexibility for the families and the teaching staff,

Challenges for Students learning from Homes

 At the beginning of the pandemic, mostly the entire scenario of learning from homes was very confusing. Neither were we prepared for remote learning, nor we had ever preempt this situation ever before. Naturally our homes, systems and individuals haven't chanced upon on any learning training or tools to help them take over this daunting situation. Remote learning came with its set of challenges from lack of physical and technical support to integration and cohesiveness in teaching learning, from distractions of a door bell, a ringing telephone, an uninvited guest or delivery from a grocery store to lack of proper and engaging content for online learning. A multitude of concerns were a deterrent in a learning set up for the students and many advocate no matter how effective the delivery of a lesson might be, it cannot replace for a human interaction and engagement.

Challenges for Parents

Parents have faced undoubtedly the maximum stress during the Covid-19. At the beginning, the parents struggled to keep their wards home with a purpose in a setting which wasn't helpful and accomodating with parents and children working from home alike. Some of the parents had to make a makeshift place to accomodate all parties working from a dysfunctional arrangement. Post reopening of schools, parents were worried if schools would be a safe place for large congregations and how staggered time approach for various activities in school would prove helpful in providing socio-emotional support and respond to the ongoing stress faced by students.

Challenges for Teachers

Teachers had little or almost no notice about school closures and retorting to online learning. Naturally they were expected to be resilient and prepared for the challenge. Not only they began sorting, filtering and organising the resources and tools available for online instruction, but they also needed to accomodate for technical issues, plethora of questions from the students and the families and yet make the learning happen. They had to think of myriad ways of learning given lack of technical accessibility of assistance every home might have, students with learning disabilities or special needs and also lack of engagement and disruption challenges. Despite the reluctance from some families and debate over the need of teachers or schools during the crisis, teachers handled the crisis with care.

Most teachers have wondered how would a classroom look like post re-opening of schools? While teachers miss a physical interaction with the students, yet they are scared for their lives and are apprehensive about normalcy in the classrooms. With additional duties and responsibility towards maintaining safe distancing in class, adopting more non verbal cues and online teaching instructions, teachers are still apprehensive about their own mental health and personal training to deal with issues surrounding broken homes, students coming from homes with high risk patients, stigma attached to one who has been infected and many more. Some teachers have been reluctant to go back to work and have been wondering if there are enough options to accomodate the needs of the teachers including the option to teach remotely or changes in contracts if they contract virus while at work. While there has been much debate to if health care workers with families jumped in, why teachers can't? But many teachers have insisted, they didn't sign up for health care jobs. On other hand, many teachers and educators have risen to the moment and this moment has created new heroes. Teachers have been wrestling with new problems daily to cater to unlimited questions and dilemma on the whole teaching learning process remotely in first place and safely returning to schools now. 

In this new war that the world is seeing now, Teachers are creating moments of calmness, kindness and innovation. It is responsibility teachers have taken upon themselves to be available and accessible to the students and the families more readily, putting their families at stake for a larger sane community existence.