Blogpost One:  “Impact of COVID-19 on Our Education”

Blogpost One: “Impact of COVID-19 on Our Education”

Impact of COVID-19 on Our Education

The COVID-19 pan­demic, caused by the novel coro­n­avirus SARS-Cov‑2 has changed the course of our life.  In this article, we will present our opinion that the lock­downs indeed had a few ancil­lary family, envi­ron­men­tal, and famil­ial ben­e­fits, but the neg­a­tive effects out­weighed the pos­i­tives and that a more careful approach should have been con­sid­ered before the wide­spread dis­rup­tion to the lives of the youth.

In order to reduce the spread of the virus, the gov­ern­ment has taken various pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures includ­ing a nation­wide lockdown.

A big concern of the pan­demic and result­ing lock­downs was how to con­tinue edu­cat­ing India’s stu­dents effec­tively while schools were manda­to­rily closed.  There were several sets of guide­lines and plans issued by the gov­ern­ment.  Due to school clo­sures, there was a need to adopt a change in our edu­ca­tional system.  Online learn­ing was put into place, and the mantra was that edu­ca­tion would con­tinue at a dis­tance, via tech­nol­ogy, and that all would be good and the edu­ca­tion of stu­dents wouldn’t miss a beat.

Edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions made various efforts to reach stu­dents through various elec­tronic, imper­sonal means which were readily avail­able to wealth­ier fam­i­lies across the nation.  However, the poorest, and even many middle-class were hurt the most as they just didn’t have the resources to attend the online classes because they couldn’t obtain, or use effec­tively, the gadgets and tech­nol­ogy required for online classes.  

Many stu­dents fell through the cracks.

Ini­tially, stu­dents were really happy because of the the lock­down, and espe­cially of school clo­sures.  They were spend­ing their whole day playing games and watch­ing movies.  Nat­u­rally though, after a while the stu­dents became bored with this unusual twist in their daily rou­tines, and they real­ized that their old pre-pan­demic routine of coming to in-person school was much better than this new lax and elec­tronic lifestyle.  Stu­dents were waiting for the lock­downs to end so that they could become free again from the iso­la­tion and able to meet with their friends and attend in-person classes.

Every coin has two sides, and sim­i­larly, the lock­down also had both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive effects.  On the one hand, stu­dents had extra time to prepare for com­pet­i­tive exams and self-study.  They also had more quality time with family and learn­ing to concoct new activ­i­ties at home.  However, on the other hand, the closure of phys­i­cal schools forced stu­dents to do online learn­ing, which had many detri­men­tal effects in areas such as aca­d­e­mic per­for­mance, strain­ing of eye­sight from increased screen-time, mental health issues such as depres­sion, stress, anxiety, and frus­tra­tion from human alienation.

After facing this haz­ardous pan­demic, we realize that the offline mode of study is more ben­e­fi­cial and pro­duc­tive as com­pared to the virtual mode of study.  Offline classes pro­vides for direct inter­ac­tion between teach­ers and stu­dents, hence it pro­vides a health­ier envi­ron­ment for the student to flour­ish.  There­fore, in our con­clu­sion, despite the few bless­ings that came our way via the lock­down, overall, the lock­downs and school clo­sures were much more harmful  than ben­e­fi­cial.  The lock­downs gave us a better appre­ci­a­tion for our phys­i­cal learn­ing envi­ron­ment and inter­per­sonal inter­ac­tions, and we will hope­fully not take it for granted now that we’ve seen the neg­a­tive impact we’ve expe­ri­enced without it.

Thank you for reading our opinion.

The Student Website Edi­to­r­ial Team

*Dis­claimer:  This is the sole opinion of the Student Edi­to­r­ial Team and does not nec­es­sar­ily rep­re­sent the views of our school or teachers.

Our Director’s Birthday!

Our Director’s Birthday!

Today is our Director’s birthday!

(From our student edi­to­r­ial team, rep­re­sent­ing the larger student body)

Dear Bade Sir,

You are really a bless­ing from God to us.  You have been a role-model and inspi­ra­tion to us and the many thou­sands of stu­dents who have studied in your school since 1985.

You are a person who not only teaches from books, but also pro­vides us with life-lessons.  You have shown us the impor­tance of love, respect, honor, opti­mism, and self-respect.

You show us the right aisle when­ever we rove.  You encour­age us to do some­thing mean­ing­ful with our lives.  Your per­sonal expe­ri­ences have also pro­vided us with a unique edu­ca­tional perspective.

Truly, you are a great source of knowledge…and wisdom!  What­ever we are is all because of you.  Thank you for all that you are and every­thing you do.

We under­stand that being a teacher is, was, and will never be an easy job.  However, you have done even more by treat­ing us as a family and not just stu­dents, and that is a very rare thing indeed.  We are priv­i­leged to have studied under you.

We are very thank­ful to you for serving our small town, giving us high quality edu­ca­tion, and helping us to be aware of the world.

We, the student body of 2021/2022, and espe­cially the website edi­to­r­ial team, wish you a very warm, pros­per­ous, and healthy birth­day and year ahead!

Sincerely.….your stu­dents.

Career Counseling Opportunity — With Special Guest, Jeevan.

Career Counseling Opportunity — With Special Guest, Jeevan.

Over the last week, we’ve been dipping out toes into the pool of per­son­al­ity assess­ments and career coun­sel­ing.  Coin­ci­den­tally, in a stroke of good luck, we had a visitor come from the realm of multi­na­tional “big tech”, Jeevan sir, who hails from Ban­ga­lore, Chennai, and Goa.  He stopped in to talk to our website edi­to­r­ial team about his expe­ri­ences in India and on a multi­na­tional level, leading tech and sales teams abroad.  It was a great dia­logue that delved into the areas of career choice, per­sonal hap­pi­ness, self-respect, integrity, and knowing who you are as a person.

The student edi­to­r­ial lead­er­ship team com­mented, after spend­ing 1‑½ hours with Jeevan sir:   “We were so thank­ful that he took the time out to spend with us.   What he said to us was very impor­tant, and we all took it to heart.  The oppor­tu­nity was golden, and we took advan­tage of every moment with him.  It is our wish, as the “student edi­to­r­ial board”, that more of the stu­dents in our school will take advan­tage of these oppor­tu­ni­ties.  It can only help us.  The invest­ment of time gave us huge rewards.  Spend­ing time with Ron sir, taking the MBTI and other per­son­al­ity and career assess­ments, learn­ing how to prop­erly type on a com­puter key­board, and even learn the lan­guage of music are only making us stronger and wiser about the world.”