A Planned Academic Hiatus

This is not about me. I am considering this for all the students. Those governed by certification powers (like the CBSE, over grade 10–12) are old enough to adapt if pushed, though I think my recommendation could/should be extended to them, as well.

tl;dr:

Academic year 2020–2021 should be earmarked as a break-year & students actually study their course (slated for 2020–2021) in 2021–2022. This doesn’t imply a prescription for a non-teaching year but a different-learning year. The impact is minimal and mostly to the imagined plans of ambitious parents and schools. The benefits are significant. Details follow…

Current Circumstances:

The students have already lost a portion of their academic year. The way the numbers are going, I do not think opening schools before 1st Aug should even be considered. I realise that I do not have a say over the government, school’s commercial interests or even demanding parents who prefer clockwork/convenience over their child’s emotional well-being. I will also not go into why I think this pandemic is not abating (let alone ending) in the next few months.

Impact on the child:

If you belong to a military school of thought which believes that focusing on the child’s emotional well-being is a sign of weakness & all children grow up through any hardship & become stronger, then I have nothing to say to you. I definitely care about inner and outer strength but not at the cost of emotional well-being. The child, today, is locked indoors, is unable to meet & interact with friends, is unable to move freely, is witness to domestic tension, is confused with what is happening outside, is probably not having access to good nutrition and amenities, is, perhaps, dealing with the death of family members hit by COVID-19, etc. This is not an environment that breeds a healthy child. Any action that dismisses this state of the child’s world is selfish & monstrous, in my opinion.

Action 1: Students are being pushed to taking classes online in order to make-up for lost time and cover syllabus. Some schools are insisting that they turn up online in their uniforms! Asking children to come online to learn from teachers who are poorly trained in conducting immersive online classes is torture. I am not indulging in hyperbole — please observe your child. They are being asked to sit in front of a screen (if they are privileged enough to have a screen) and deal with a familiar face talking away (because the whiteboard behind the teacher is out of focus), without having the rest of their class around them creating the very vital dynamic ecosystem of a classroom. Some teachers simply drop assignments or worksheets on a daily basis expecting the child to work off a mobile screen or monitor. Adults, themselves, are poor at reading anything (non-entertaining) in digital format. Expecting children, who have been repeatedly told to stay away from digital media, to suddenly read material, solve worksheets, etc. online is not the best way to keep them productively engaged. And they are being guided into this by the worst population — irate parents & confused+irate teachers.

If children are proving to be poor recipients of the online classes, teachers are proving to be poor architects of online learning. Teachers, today, are ill-equipped to conduct online classes. Let me explain my rationale.

1. Teachers do not have proper infrastructure in place. Not all of them have high-bandwidth internet connections. Perhaps, they were saving pennies (from the pennies that they are paid) by using their mobile data (which is usually capped). With a sudden lockdown, they couldn’t get anyone to come setup a home broadband connection. With such a poor network infra, whatever they try online, is bound to be fractured.
2. Teachers are not trained to conduct classes online. Most teachers aren’t trained beyond just the lecture-and-”shut up and sit down”-method, but even those who are, are not trained in using technology. Using technology has two aspects — knowing what the menu options on the software are + knowing how to use technology in your domain (viz. education). Most people think that the former is sufficient. Without the latter, they aren’t thinking differently and are merely force-fitting their in-presence teaching methods into documents or videos. This explains why teachers are mechanically dumping worksheets on students, over WhatsApp. It gets even more tragic when a teacher asks (and this happened on a webinar) whether 6 worksheets per day is too little for a pre-schooler!
3. Teachers do not know of or have access to resources/tools that make online learning phenomenally engaging. They just don’t know about EdPuzzle, for instance, or Steve’s Splat series. CuriosityStream.com requires a membership that is expensive in India.
4. Teachers have no interest in learning something “just for a month”. I won’t comment on this irony, any further.

In all this, there is very little attention being paid to the child’s well-being. Once (if) the school reopens, I am sure the teachers are going to “re-teach” whatever was “taught” online simply because “most of them didn’t get it” (same reasoning as when teaching in-person).

Action 2: Syllabi are not being relaxed this year. CBSE/NCERT have gone ahead and made the content a little more complicated — not sure what they are imagining. They have added chapters or sections or reduced time to be spent on particular units. Parents are going to push their kids. Schools are going to push teachers. Teachers are going to push their students and we are all going to pretend like this pandemic didn’t happen.

Solution — Academic Hiatus:

What I am prescribing is a simple academic hiatus for all the students. This year’s (2020–2021) start will be in Apr 2021. This year can be used to focus on the other aspects of a whole child development as well as other facets of the prescribed syllabus. If every school realised and adopted this, then schools/teachers/parents/students can drop the undue stress and use this year to focus on developing other essential skills & habits of learning. Students could very well be introduced to the topics of study (of the 2020–2021 syllabus) but not with the focus of exams but more as a matter of learning or being exposed to different aspects of discovering or playing with these topics. Let me start with the benefits of doing this:

1. Teachers get trained and equipped for future epidemics/pandemics (and trust me, there will be many in our lifetime).
2. Students get a few months of genuine learning & exploring. Students learn to relook at learning and not associate it with the boring rigmarole of studying for exams & memorisation.
3. Many vital facets of the student get an opportunity to be developed. E.g. effective communication, empathy, critical research techniques, problem solving, political acumen, stamina, agility, economic astuteness, etc.
4. For a change, instead of focusing on bookish rigour, we can focus on social and emotional richness. This is what will hold us in good stead during future pandemics/epidemics/crisis.
5. Students who genuinely needed more attention but never received it due to a rush can now avail genuine remedial action.
6. Students start having greater faith in the system that surrounds them as they witness it being considerate to them. They are likely to participate in it as more committed citizens.
7. Since it would be happening to all students, no one feels like they had to suffer a loss of a year.

There are many more benefits which become visible once one decides to open one’s mind.

Now let us consider the harm/damages to all stakeholders.

1. Students will leave the education system 1 year later than planned. This is not a huge loss because it is the status of every student. What is 1 year in a life of, hopefully, 80+ years?
2. Parents might have to pay an extra year’s fees. This can be addressed by spreading the damage amongst schools & teachers as well. Govt. could very well absorb some of this impact. But yes, there is some impact although not a waste due to points 2, 3, 4, 5 above. This is not even a concern at our school where we don’t charge fees & are funded by donations.
3. School revenue streams will also be impacted.
4. Teacher salaries might also be impacted (though this would be the most criminal thing to do).
5. Admissions will be impacted. If extended to grade 12, college/university admissions/revenue is bound to be impacted (but they could also extend this thereby retaining their students for another year and ensuring sound learning & earning).

Pros and cons aside, we must be considerate to the students in the time of crisis. Many of them do not have access to resources online. If we reopen and assume everyone has been taught online during the lockdown and proceed to conduct exams, then it is extremely unfair to those who aren’t privileged. By not reducing the content for this year (and I understand that we can’t do that as subsequent years are aligned on an assumption of completion in prior years) we are going to force feed content. Reminds me of the cruel practice of foie gras!

These kids are forced into isolation from their friends, play-groups, play, schools and routines. These kids are witness to a stress that we should not ignore. While I delight in the songs of birds filling the air, I dearly miss the shrill shrieks of joy & play in my neighbourhood.

If we care about education, the recommendation of a hiatus is in line with all that we claim about the right education & learning. If we only care about scores & syllabus completion, let us not claim to care about our citizens or children or education. This pandemic is not going away anytime soon. Let us resolve to make it less painful at least for our children.