The pandemic has hit all of us really hard. The world around us changed completely literally at the stroke of midnight. Overnight our most precious resource – the household help vanished, all companies switched completely to the WFH (Work From Home) module and kids got confined within the four walls of the house.
Adults got buzy maneuvering their lives between office work, household chores and managing kids (in the same order). The companies never thought of restructuring their work schedules keeping in mind their employees household engagements which included looking after the needs of the smallest member of the family.
With increasing pressure from all sides, schools too decided to plunge into the TFH (Teach From Home) structure, that’s what I like to call most of the Online Sessions that schools around us have adopted. Just like many companies didn’t pay much attention to the other house engagements of employees, most pre primary schools converted their curriculum to Online Mode overnight without giving it much of a thought as to how feasible it would be for parents to indulge in this process.
As a preschool co- founder I feel it’s very tough to turn on to the Online Mode when so much of preschool education is about hands-on learning, exploration and play. Ideally, early learning opportunities teach kids about emotions, how to make friends and get along with other children. Those learning experiences can’t be completely replicated in an online setting, but believe me, it isn’t completely impossible either.
An online learning for a pre primary child needs to allow them to interact with each other and not just sit and listen to the teacher. Such a session would be no better than seeing a pre recorded module on YouTube (no offense to the YouTube modules, just that they aren’t for little kids). A pre primary online session needs to allow kids to interact with teachers & with peers, just as they would in a classroom.
Hence, with great R & D we decided to start our Online Sessions. We did a lot of brainstorming in redesigning and restructuring our curriculum to suit the Online mode. We kept in mind a lot of points while doing so. Some of them are:
1. Restructuring the learning targets and making them simpler & realistic as there is a change in the learning environment for the kids
2. Explaining and keeping our parents in sync with our teaching methodology by holding a proper Orientation Session before the kids get into the Online Mode
3. Many activities were redesigned, using household equipment’s so that the parents don’t have to run helter skelter arranging for stuff
4. Making all teaching and learning material available to the parents with proper training to parents on how to use each equipment
Our Online Sessions are hence not TFH (Teach From Home) but LFH (Learn From Home). Let’s remember that without hardwork, nothing grows but weeds. The need of the hour for all parents and teachers is to work in complete partnership so that we can see our little buds bloom into amazing flowers.
Persistence & Patience is the only key that will unlock our kids learning during this lockdown !
So help us creating that desired learning curve for our kids, keeping the Niño & Niña philosophy of, “Learning Is A Fun Ride” intact !!
-DIVYA JOSHI
