Can Schools Break The Three Year Jinx?
By: MIR TARIQ MAQBOOL
World has come to a standstill since the outbreak of Covid -19 but we in Kashmir suffered an additional year of thaw due to the political upheavals post abrogation of article 370 which led to an additional year of lockdown- a term unknown to the rest of the world back then. Kashmiris were not even out of this imbroglio, that C-19 hit the Chinese city of Wuhan and within a couple of months knocked doors around the world. As they say little knowledge is dangerous but ours is catastrophic because our rumor mongers are very brisk – tez se b bohat tez” than any episode itself. Ironically, incidents sometimes get the clue to happen from our local rumor market which we know as “Dapaan Station”. Our “Dapaan Station” does not need any 4G/5G network for any fake news to propagate and works with or without technological aid with all the flavors to disturb people and give them a heart break.
They say people of Kashmir are much stressed, here the deaths of people are common due to high blood pressure and the situation is unstoppable and somehow our “Dapaan Station” is responsible for it with the political “dramabaaz” always putting their show. They deserve Oscar for their acting but unfortunately their world is real not the fictional/reel one. Once you have such a super fertile-substratum, spontaneity of any incident becomes obvious. With these conditions available to intimidate people C-19 enjoyed its stay in the valley. People were locked up and our local administration made sure that they die out of starvation if not of Covid 19. Shops were shut, curfew was imposed and basic amenities were dashed out. Local police was clueless and so were people of the valley. Going outside home was synonymous to inviting trouble not because of C-19 only but because of the “Desi massage” given by our policemen.
Though they risked their life and deserve applause but they were caught off guard and thus planning was missing. There was all chaos in our part of the world and no inspiration pooling out to come out from the mess. With all this mayhem in the backyard we turned towards national media to keep ourselves updated about the virus and we came to know its ethnicity there. The Tableeghi drama was played by our super sharp journalists and we felt as if Muslims are the actual cause of catastrophe but not the virus. Anyways thanks to virus to provide our national media platforms to switch over to something different to earn their TRP otherwise Balakot Surgical strike- “Guss k Marra” rhetoric with two to three natural heavy base vocals and huge moustache was losing the sheen. Balakot was OK but our news anchors were fighting the war in their AC studio to earn TRP. Somehow the news headlines again changed back in June’20 when an incident took the national Desh-Bhakt news outlets with storm due to suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput. The outcome was Rea Chakarborthy became an overnight internet sensation with bad publicity though. Everybody got excited to see who is Rea Chakarborthy? (who was otherwise living her life in oblivion). Due to all this dramabaazi from all the corners we were more than stressed. Thankfully, internet services were restored in March 2020 after seven months suspension …. Stop! Stop!! Stop!!! with 2G speed only and online classes were somehow managed for students.
2G network was never going to help but the teaching/learning stakeholders were devoid of any other alternative. Students tried their best to attend the online classes but due to the lack of efficacy on 2G speed they preferred playing PUB-G and other video games. No doubt they can win an Olympic medal in PUB-G if that will be given chance in Olympics but their studies suffered a lot. PUB-G became national crush for our students and may be a national game as well but the grades slid fast and the performance of students in studies took a death bed. The cleavage in learning was widening with supersonic speed and students were enjoying their romance with video games. Parents were in deep slumber and they were waiting for helpless schools to act. But C-19 was never in a mood to provide any relaxation and the students kept suffering. Whenever there was a thaw, the administration was skeptical to open the schools. Otherwise they could have stopped downward slide of the performance of the students to an extent. Schools became the hot seats as usual and the activities were put to freeze thereof.
After a few months of lockdown wine shops, restaurants etc were given a nod but there was no direction pertaining to students to return to their schools. The shops were permitted to open the shutters and public transport was given a go but schools continued to accumulate the dust. Our local drivers, with 9 seats’ capacity, used to ferry 11 passengers without any concept of appropriate Covid behavior but our schools where the SOPs could have been comparatively taken care of were assumed to be more vulnerable. With all this comedy going on the student fraternity lost their three important years of learning. Now the issue is their return. Whenever they return to schools what should be our parameters to evaluate their performance? Where from a teacher will start? Do we have any planning for them? Opening schools look certain now, instead should have been instructed to open if we really prioritize education of our young generation but one can’t expect it by the comedy of incidents happened in the past three years. Every passing day is a big loss and incredibly important for students, that too when they are away from schools for such a long time. We should have cashed in on the opportunity to reopen the schools with weather and C-19 situation stable. Anyway! What schools need to do now? Shall we consider the class 10th students basically from class 7th because last time they saw the school was back in 2019 when they used to be the students of 7th standard and somehow managed to pass the exams held at home with books, notes and internet available in the orbit.
Their learning gap is too wide to be mitigated anytime soon. Teachers don’t have any magical wand to touch the students to make their performance class- appropriate. Do we have any policy to help them grow? What should we start with – remedial classes, crash course or main content from the syllabi. Is it within the ambit of school to start to re-build the basics in the beginning? What about the syllabi then? Government and schools should work as hand in glove to synchronize the process with more common sense than anything more ambitious. Let students feel the atmosphere of the school first. Work on their behavior than going into the teaching the content directly. Let us start working on their concentration, sitting time and habit of reading first – important tools to re-start. Go from simple to complex. Decide on the pedagogy. Give priority to those subjects first which students find interesting.
Start in bits and then add the diversity to the class vis-a-vis prescribed subjects. Let them adapt first and then start the complete process. Keep the school atmosphere welcoming and student friendly. Prepare your mindset that you are going to face a tough session with uneven/rusty beginning and prepare accordingly. Your students need more a hand-holding than the teaching of the content to go with. Try activity based classes and make sure that the classes are more interactive. Individual attention will be the key to pull the students out from the disarray. Change your teaching behavior to change the learning behavior of the students. Parent too has a role. Give your best shot in parenting now if you want your ward’s future safe. Prepare a time table for your ward at home as well and make sure he/she follows it in letter and spirit. Keep the home-time table flexible and so does your approach. Work in synch with school and try to mitigate the borders between school and home by giving school-like learning atmosphere at home too. Spot and Endorse the growth. We will be able to break the jinx, if administration, schools and parents concord to help the future generation blossom.
Kashmir Images is an English language daily newspaper published from Srinagar (J&K), India. The newspaper is one of the largest circulated English dailies of Kashmir and its hard copies reach every nook and corner of Kashmir Valley besides Jammu and Ladakh region.
