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The journey from offline to online has been an eventful journey and its not over yet.

We started online classes for our board classes in the month of March itself. Initially, all of us assumed that online classes are going to be for a short duration only and soon this phase will go away and normal schools would resume. Gradually it started becoming clear that the online classes are here to stay. For older students, we used Zoom and for younger ones we started with Google Meet. But in the month of June, we moved all students to Zoom. Zoom was user-friendly, for parents and students to handle. We also used Google Classrooms and WhatsApp for a lot of communication and information dissemination.

We spent a lot of time in ensuring all our teachers are getting trained. We also had to handhold parents and students to make them ready for online classes and how to upload worksheets, attempt homework etc. Interestingly many times grandparents also joined for the students, whose parents are working. Instead of challenges, I would call these our opportunities. We learnt and we enabled learning for our students and parents on these new tools and systems.

The challenge on the other hand was access to devices. Many teachers had to use mobiles to teach. Many families had limited devices, which parents and children had to share for their work. But teachers are a community, which knows how to smile through everything.

Resistance to change is human. While we received support from a lot of parents, we also had many, who were judging the teachers. Some parents stood by us and came up with practical suggestions. Teachers struggled due to a lack of experience on technology and handling software. But they came along after a while, as they got used to technology.

We attended a lot of webinars and online teaching training classes to upgrade our online teaching skills. We made training mandatory for teachers so that we can be more effective. After practicing for many months now, they have become proficient. I still believe, we need to constantly assure and motivate them. All teachers, like everyone, have families, children and could be in joint families. Doing work from home can be extremely hard for them. We regularly do stress-busting meetings to keep the teachers motivated. We have to speak to each other to share our personal stories to know everyone is in the same boat and facing the same situations.

Students have adapted very quickly. Due to our association with Queensland university, our students alreday had experience of learning virtually.

I personally feel as an educator, should we go for learning outcomes or not. I think if they have learned how to accept reality and the situation and are living as per the current requirements, its a good learning outcome.

We are completely ready with all SOPs and processes, when we open schools, what is to be done. But if we as a country are able to create a culture that students can learn from anywhere anytime and also come to campus, it would be great for students. Pandenmic has taught us this, that education can reach every student. There are many students, who have got left out, but if we think out of the box, they can become part of this journey.

What I like about Curious Times is General Knowledge format that you use. Kids love to read in that format. An indirect benefit is practicing reading. Another beautiful part is to acknowledge the smallest of the efforts. Because of this, they feel motivated to do more. I recommend everyone to read your content, as reading has a lot of good by-products.

Happy Teachers Day to all!

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