IndiGlobal Bureau
There is now a consensus among the teaching fraternity on the teaching-learning process and that is it should be a joyous journey. This was evident in the recently concluded 2nd IndiGlobal Education Festival (IGEF) in Hyderabad. In the panel discussion on ‘Challenges after Reopening Schools’ the panelists discussed on the readjustment challenges, social and mental well-being aspect of students as well as teachers as the schools reopened after a hiatus of more than two years.
Extra and co-curricular activities need to be given importance
An aspect that came to the fore was the need to give equal importance to extra and co-curricular activities for the holistic development of the child. Shri Amogh Butta, COO, Meridian Group of Schools said, “Huge learning gaps are the huge concerns and I don’t see it a problem but a symptom of an underlying problem which is the reduction of the attention span among students and even adults are facing that. There are opportunities where things can go hand in hand and that would help to channelize his energy better with extracurricular activities.
Dr Jyothi Reddy Ghanta, Director of Education, The Shri Ram Hyderabad Schools said, “When we say the workloads of the teachers we only say the teaching periods. Are we giving the planning periods correction periods as a part of the workload for a teacher is a key point to understand as the leaders. Alefiyah Hussain, Director, Neo School Aizza High School said, We need to change our vision first and understand that we don’t have to only worry about the academics. The need of the hour is not what all you have to study but it’s how to study and how we are going to put the content in such a way that it is joyful learning.
K Sarada, Joint Secretary (Acad-2), TSWREIS was of the opinion that students showing interest in writing exams in online mode because there is no teacher and no principles. My suggestion to all the teachers is to please give time to learn the difficulties. We have to always find out the learning levels of the students and encourage the students who are low achievers and show our love and affection to learn more.
Sonia Nagpal, Principal, Gitanjali, Vedika School said that in the post pandemic times when students came to school it’s not only the verbal language skill but the non-verbal language skills also that we had to teach them. Therefore, we gave our students the opportunity to do podcasts so they did the scripting for their podcasts where the writing skills came into practice. We introduced them with the apps which they can use for the podcasts. In that all the language skills were covered. Rather going into each skill we gave them a task as they have chosen their own area of interest they just love to do it.
Kulwant Kaur, Legal Counsel & Parent drew the attention of the participants to the use of gadgets. She said, “As much as gadgets are monsters these days, they are the need of the hour as well. We need to understand that striking a balance is very much important as parents and as a school management. Open conversation with your children is very important. The era has changed of course and the owners and responsibility is with parents. They need to understand how to set the boundaries for their children.”
Meghana Musunuri, Founder & Chairperson Fountainhead Global School & Junior College opined, “Teachers should divide the entire lesson plan and a couple of lesson plans could be devoted to the extracurricular activities which students can enjoy. So when we bring a fun element to our studies we can achieve faster. Also we should have a handful of rules to implement to start with and once the students will get to know about the positive outcome definitely that will become a habit of no time. They feel secure rather than feeling why there are so many rules imposed on them and feel stress about that.
The session was moderated by PVRK Murthy, Chairman, SriGayatri Institutions.