Unmasking the mask of unsung schools
A day of despair indeed for those schools, parents, teachers, and children who took excruciating pains to ensure that classes went on as planned, despite the pandemic. And the Government proclaims this day that there will be no exams or assessments and promotions are granted without assessing the learning outcomes of the child. Despair is seen on the faces of those Principals, teachers, and students who have already completed their assessments, and no words can console them.
The School management took quick measures and decisions to upgrade the IT infrastructure and quickly enabled and trained teachers to match the requirement of these times and start teaching online. None waited for government orders or governments to take initiatives or serve as role models in government schools.
Imagining a day in an ordinary household during these days: the day began with the schedules as shared by the School. While parents went about their household chores and working parents got back to work virtually or physically, there was the assurance that the child was preoccupied with school work and assignments. The teacher continued to be the pastor as s/he did during the in-person classes and student engagement was the priority. Likewise, imagining a day in an empty school where teachers took it upon themselves, leaving behind their children at home and at the risk of their lives, attended school every day. The physical classroom had to be magically transformed into a virtual one, the board had to be utilised as s/he focused the camera of the system on the board, the handset which was a device of convenience and luxury doubled as an essential for those who had no access to the desktop or a laptop and the teacher crooned and explained. The toddler school had teachers singing to an imaginary audience, creating videos, dramatising and explaining, and thinking of ways to explain abstract concepts to the little one. Assessments and assignments had to be a lot more challenging and children were periodically assessed as would have been the case otherwise. And in all of this the quiet, unsung hero was the Principal who facilitated it all by being the mediator and moderator and at times the dictator. We read of teachers travelling long distances to teach at homes and common places in villages, while the senior school got back to their classrooms as soon as they could and despite peril to the entire family, carried on and revised and revisited even the online sessions. Unsung heroes they are all, so much so, that while thinking of priority vaccination, the government chose to ignore them all.
And while all this goes on, it is disheartening to see a band of people still despising schools, private managements, teachers, bringing in a greater chasm between the haves and have nots and all under the garb of education.
As educators, our hearts are heavy as we witness the tussle between parents and schools and a complete denial from parents to pay the rightful dues to the school. While we have gone back to the new normal and are back in restaurants and theatres and malls and shopping, that little bit that we can do to educate a child has taken a back seat in the New Normal. Forgiven and forgotten are the common bantering of parents while the child was at school on a normal day; but in these times, a teacher has extended her classes to the child and the curious parents at home too. So do we charge them extra for that audience? Healing is what we need now and a prayer that these educational institutions can draw strength from these unprecedented situations they are in. As teachers, we can do no less than forgiving those who offend us these days! But can compassion ever prevail?
