The year 2020, the year of COVID-19, the year of the pandemic, the year that had many impacts, specially on the education front. It threw a huge challenge to the entire education system and the complete chain even remotely associated to this.
It not only impacted the students but also changed their way of learning.
It not only impacted the teachers but also greatly modified their way of teaching.
Most importantly it impacted the parents in not just one way but many.
However, we teachers with great support of the families took up the task of continuing the education and striving to make the year worthwhile. Physical distancing and restrictions due to the contagious virus, meant that children & teachers couldn’t attend school & parents couldn’t go to their offices. The whole world looked at the Online Platform as the only saviour. Since physical classes could not be held, virtual sessions became a reality.
It was challenging yet an amazing learning process for all of us- Teachers, Students & Parents.
Educators started to meticulously plan their sessions to keep them interesting, interactive and at the same time educative & productive. Being an educator at Niño &Niña Preschool, I got really busy researching for innovative ways of teaching in online sessions which would benefit the students to the maximum and keep to keep them put at a place. My teacher fraternity would agree with me how rigorously we all got involved in making interesting presentations for our kids.
In order to walk the extra mile in these testing times, we at Niño & Niña not only thoughtfully created sessions for the kids but also went ahead in preparing art and craft kits for the kids so as to ease the parents from the stress for arranging and cutting the material before a session. “This surely helped us in building a bond of involvement and readiness for the Online Sessions by our parents”, says Mr Nishchal Arora, Co-founder of Niño & Niña Preschool. “We are now even inviting new parents to see how confident our students and involved our parents are during these Online Sessions. We are also training our NTT interns in the Online Sessions to give them a real exposure to teaching”, adds Nishchal with pride.
“We kept in mind all the aspects of a child’s development like Cognitive skills, Language Development, Conceptual Learning, Logical Skill Development and many more aspects were taken into consideration while redesigning our Planners for Online Sessions”, explains Divya Joshi, Co-founder of Niño & Niña Preschool.
We rebuilt the routine of the students of going to the school to being enthusiastically ready to welcome their teachers n friends on the screen. Although we make efforts to render opportunities for students to interact amongst themselves virtually but I being a mother myself, I feel the sense of sharing & socializing can’t be compensated in the online sessions.
It was overwhelming to see our students soon adapting the new way of learning from the security of their home. It was challenging for parents too, to devote time and settle kids for online sessions. “Persistence & Patience played a key role here”, adds Divya Joshi.
Parents played a very important role in the process of online learning and it was equally challenging for them to maintain a balance between work, household responsibilities and responsibility towards the learning of their kids. Parents kept juggling between all these things and yet showed tremendous energy and enthusiasm towards attending the online sessions.
Right from keeping the things required for the activities to assisting the children follow the teacher’s instructions in learning the right grip of holding a pencil, parents were really partnering with us throughout.
A lot of success of Online Classes goes to the parents in overcoming the hurdles of COVID-19. Parents supported the education system in a big way. “I am really reliving my childhood days attending the Sessions with my child. The craft kit sent by you all is so amazing that both my daughter and I look forward to the craft sessions. Hats off to you all for making even the online sessions so interactive and interesting”, comments one of our parents on Google Review.
Today when we stand together & are beginning to see the light beyond the tunnel with the vaccine ready, we must remember one thing that nature is the most powerful element and we human beings are a small part of nature and are more powerful and strong when we fight together against a common enemy. We should actually have a round of applause for the best fighters of 2020 alongside the health workers.
I personally think it is the small children who stood the real test of time, spending so much time indoors yet showing a huge amount of understanding and maturity. This has in a way helped to heal the world and show us hope for a COVID-19 free future !
Pooja Potdar, Early Childhood Educator (Niña & Niña Preschool N Daycare, Noida)
