Teaching in the Time of Covid
Dr. Rajani
Solitude, isolation are painful things and beyond human endurance…
Whatever Jules Verne tried to round off in his quote on isolation, we are living proof that human endurance could be stretched beyond the unstretchable. It was almost as if Nature was tired of dealing with the infernal bullies, we humans, and brought everything to a standstill, in an attempt to rejuvenate and strengthen herself.
What else can you infer from a playground without kids, schools without students, markets with no commerce, nations where no one could move beyond boundaries and the entire human race armed with a bandaged mouth? It was like witnessing a scene directly out of a Robin Cook novel, and yet, in spite of the dystopian vision, we survived…
As a teacher, what people like me went through during the epidemic was literally unthinkable. With a true air of defiance, people like me who believed in the superiority of Languages and Arts over Sciences, had turned a blind eye towards technology. We had nothing but contempt for the so- called distractions of the digital world. It hurts my vanity to confess that during the pandemic, people like me were given no choice but to accept the tyranny of technology. Being an old fashioned teacher, who believed in mentoring and rigid tutoring, I felt miserable and lost in the new environment. Every morning, the board with “Mobile phones are not allowed inside the campus” would catch my eye and I would begin my class with a direction to use better versions of the android phones. The sense of humiliation was unbearable. Yet, we endured…
The humiliation did not end there. As we grappled with our newly procured knowledge on live meetings, language failed us as we muted and unmuted and muted ourselves. The camera, like an alien, sucked us in, and created grotesque versions of ourselves. What our students went through as we learned and unlearned is best left to imagination. They would, at times, watch in utter disbelief as the pillars of knowledge crumbled in front of their eyes. Yet, we survived to narrate this tale…
Seminars, assignments and even assessments came and withdrew. We were unstoppable and truly so as our classes were not disturbed by questions, requests for clarifications or explanations. Nobody worried about the grasping abilities of our students and we continued with unreasonable demands like having 5 to 6 different learning apps on their phones. And still, they survived…
Now, as we prepare to throw open the doors of educational institutions to students, it is like entering the arena for the first time. We are about to deal with a group that is disadvantaged with the absence of peer group access. Learning, in the true sense of the word, never did happen during the past two years and the very positioning of the teacher- student duo within the hierarchy has been disturbed. And sadly, teachers are fighting a losing battle against Google.
