A jolt out of the blue, one fine morning, I saw news of a deadly virus which we named as covid-19 engulfed the entire world. There was no time to think about it and even discuss this as the internet was flooded with scores of messages and I didn’t know which one to believe. It was time for our school to re-open, teachers were busy decorating the class rooms getting ready to welcome the kids to the new academic session amongst rumours of school closure due to covid-19. We re-opened and had classes for four days and then the panic button was pressed, holidays were declared.
Now, I had to conduct emergency meetings with the staff to let learning continue for students from their home. Teachers were trained to take classes using Google classroom. We started using Studease App to upload worksheets, notes etc online to benefit students. During the first week we started by teaching core subjects and then I as a principal addressed the parents and talked with them about introduction of co-scholastic subjects too.
Students were delighted to be a part of fun classes we introduced dance, music, craft, best out of waste, art and yoga. In sports, we sent them videos and asked them to view the games and answer the questions sent along with the video. Life skills are very important part of our curriculum and hence work sheets based on these were also posted to students.
What worried me, are the students were able to understand through online classes. Hence, came the idea of introduction of online tests basically to check if the concepts taught were clear and how much the students were able to comprehend. But, I must say the cooperation from parents was immense they were delighted that the teachers were calling up ten students every day and talking to them not only regarding academics but giving them tips on why it’s important to be indoors and stay safe. Indeed Corona has taught me, we Indians are very strong and unitedly we can fight back against this it may definitely take time but we are coming together to coordinate and co-operate with our government.
