Oh, What a Year It Has Been!
A lot has changed over the past year. Our lifestyle, norms, everything. Do you think 2020 was a year filled with obstacles or opportunities to make one grow into a better human being? Is this a period of growth or a swamp to pull us down?
We have learnt to expect the unexpected. We have been able to adapt so quickly to a situation that it has helped us become more independent and stronger. A child who didn’t know how to make calls on the phone has begun to write program codes for an app that makes calls with voice commands.
Students are now more interested in learning new skills on their own. The boredom of lockdowns has made these boring skills very intriguing to us. Kids are teaching themselves how to play the piano, coding, video editing and much more.
For instance, a couch potato has learnt how to make potato curry and rice. Students who hate biology have started to pick up their books and research on various topics.
During an online class, suddenly when the connection is lost, the students easily fix the problems by themselves and continue with their work like nothing happened.
Some children have had to experience total lockdown at home due to a covid-positive member in the house. This has helped in increasing their empathy towards their elders and acknowledging how hard they work so that their children can play and study. They have learnt to be patient, calm and their presence of mind has increased. Hats off to all these people who have braved through this situation!
This period has made students more responsible and independent in what they do.. There is no teacher to check their work and no student/friend to copy from. These are the times when we have got our hands dirty and learned to clean it too. Virtual learning has a lot of benefits, like, being our own boss at our classwork, learning a lot of personal skills, and sometimes even a little leisure to do mischief.
A student that I know was really poor in his grades earlier and didn’t care about it, but he got terrified of all the sudden independence and started working hard to get better grades. He has been able to gain so much confidence in himself that he decided to learn two musical instruments on his own.
These instances are just a tip of the iceberg. There are many more incidents that testify the change that has come over people for the better. These small learnings will be really effective and useful to us, maybe not now, but in the future when one must go out in the world alone. When times became difficult to manage, our young change makers made their way to the light from the dark.
This year has been a learning experience for all students about how the world will be left for us to carry forward. There will be many challenges ahead. It is up to us to decide if we want to dance in it beautifully or escape from it cowardly.
