My first experience of the unprecedented virtual classroom shift was “That’s exciting”.To me, my first instinct was “That’s exciting!” A new experience to dive in as a teacher. My students will be welcomed at my home. They will be with me on my sofa, study table and all those places where we have no disturbance. The second thought which came in my mind was that after the lockdown, now life will be organized! It started with a great feeling of brightness and colors all around when I saw students in colorful clothes on my bright screen. To set the mood of the day we start morning greetings followed by sharing good things(in such a pandemic situation). It made me believe that happiness can be found in small things and it can be found anywhere. Each day students were so excited that my waiting room would be ringing 10 minutes prior to the class.
A sense of responsibility was in the air, students at a blink of an eye student learned the technology and tools. I was amazed not to see a noisy class, but a class where students value and respect the speaker and understood the importance of being good listeners They started expressing their thoughts and views through this platform very easily. As the classes progressed I realized that the feedback of the sessions was immediate which helped me to clarify misconceptions from my lessons and plan it smoothly.
Suddenly the virtual classes stopped. There was again a sense of shock on both sides of the screen. Again a pause to exploration and routines.No more guests at my home.A lockdown in a lockdown. The happiness of the mornings, finding out good things around and the smiling faces disappeared. I have always learned and read that learning can happen anywhere and in any form.
Now I keep reading and seeing updates in a hope that tomorrow it will begin again!
By
Jalpa Pandya
Mathematics Teacher
Ekya School, BTM Layout
The last few months have been very different for almost everyone around the globe. No one could have imagined something like this, coming straight out of movies like ‘Pandemic’ becoming real.
To start with, we thought it’s a matter of a few weeks before life gets to ‘normal’ as we had known it always. We have always been a very active family and love being outdoors particularly to big open green spaces.
There was a life that was always full of meeting friends, playing outdoors for 2 hours everyday (for the kids), having family friends come over on weekends, going to parks, sometimes malls/shopping, going to restaurants occasionally, eating street food, day trips/short weekend trips around Bangalore, getting stuck in Bengaluru traffic jams and much more.
These times have taught us to adapt and live life differently, yet remain the happy-us. Our little one, Mishika, is a very interactive child who has lived an almost gadget-free life the first 8 years of her life(she is 8 now). She loves to talk to neighbors, friends, grandparents, and us in-person. She would always dislike interactions on phone/video calls to a large extent. My parents had come visiting for 2 weeks in early March after my father finally retired from working at the age of 72 years and thanks to CovId times, it was a blessing to have them around for 3 long months until flights resumed. This is the first time all of us got to stay with my parents for so long (for me, it was after 12 long years).
Mishika learned a lot of stuff with grandparents around: basics of cooking/chopping veggies/washing utensils/praying. Of course, we all fought a lot too, to stay together with everyone having different lifestyles. But it taught us to co-exist and live happily. We had 3 birthdays in these times, all home-cooked meals that were made with so much love. Both my husband and I have always had a passion for trying out new cooking stuff. But with no helps around and both of us working in the IT world, averaging about 10-12 hours of a workday and being stuck in meetings perennially, it was a challenge for daily chores.
So, what did we do? Well, all of us gradually learned to share the workload at home. The 8-year-old arranges the plates and cutlery for all meals so religiously and happily. She learned the art of grating, cutting, and a lot more. My husband, my mother, and I divide the cooking when my mother was with us for two weeks (now its just me and my husband for cooking). Most of the times, we wash our own dishes post eating. Being foodies, we learned to make a lot of stuff at home that we loved to eatà momos, pizzas from scratch, waffles, grills n dips, and homemade wine from fresh grapes too. Mishika and her father love to bake together; and they do it every weekend. You can see a picture of the two of them doing decantation for making wine too.
We also realize that how important it is to exercise and eat fresh healthy food. Hence a balanced healthy meal every day, and we also do some stretches or exercise together every single day. The 8 year old’s interactions with friends are, mostly limited to 2-3 friends whom she meets every evening on the terrace or talks to them over the balconies; sometimes cycles within the apartment. She has adapted to the new mode of schooling so well, all thanks for Ekya teachers for being so friendly and going an extra mile for that. Video calls with grandparents and families have become a new norm and everyone knows the time for that, looks forward for that.
It’s a new us, we do chores together, we play a lot of board games and have a collection of 40+ board games by now. We dance to music, we practice karate together, sometimes yoga too together, we fight and then we laugh, the little one has learned to be with her books when the parents are busy and she makes full use of the home-library now., we have restocked the books too.
From Ms. Deeksha Dudeja (Parent of Mishika Choudhury , 3 D, Ekya ITPL)“Kathy! Have you finished your homework? You have a math test tomorrow, remember?” Mom called out from downstairs.
“Seriously! That’s gross! Do you know, I heard that Lydia and Jamie are no longer friends because Karen dared Lydia to throw food on Jamie, and that made Jamie really mad, and you know how mad she can get!” Kathy laughed, her phone practically glued to her ear.
“Kathy? Kathy! Kathy!” Mom yelled, annoyed at her daughter’s casual attitude towards her studies.
“I have a ton of homework to slog through, so I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” Kathy moaned, looking at the opened books scattered across her bed. She ended her phone call and picked up a random book. “An integer number line has positive numbers on the right and negative on the left. Fascinating.” Kathy uttered sarcastically.
The next day, Kathy ran to school and all the way to Candace, her best friend.
“Oh my god, I have so much to tell you!” Kathy squealed.
“Me too!” Candace replied excitedly, jumping up and down.
“Alright, me first. When I went to put the trash out, I saw our Bio teacher walking his dog. And do you know, that dog tried to bite me. How could he tell me to learn some manners, when his own dog doesn’t have any!” Kathy said dramatically.
“Really? Well, that’s just terrible. But do you know, I saw Riley Gains step in a puddle of mud and then--” Candace stopped talking.
“What? What did Riley do? Why did you stop?” Kathy queried.
“Do you see that girl?” Candace pointed to a sixth-grader with wavy brown hair, a striped t-shirt, a blue skirt, and red sneakers. She was holding a pile of books in her arm, looking nervous.
“Yeah. So?” Shrugged Kathy.
“Her name is Grace. I heard that she is really good at all subjects, especially subjects like math and bio. All the teachers seem to admire her, even the strictest teacher in the whole school, Mr. Adams. Today’s her third day at school, and the whole school already wants to be her friend!” Candace whispered.
“She is? Well, I’m not going to let that nerd take my spot as the coolest kid in school.” Kathy smirked.
“What are you going to do?” Candace inquired.
“I have my own ways of teaching people lessons. I’m going to teach that geek not to steal my position in the school.” Kathy declared, walking away.
During lunch hour, Kathy went up to Cynthia, a seventh-grader.
“Cynthina, I have to tell you something. Today we had a quiz in Geography, and you will not believe what I saw. I saw Grace, a so-called genius cheating! She had this special device that she kept whispering things too. I moved a bit closer to her, and I saw her asking that gadget everything on the quiz sheet, and it was giving her the answers!” Kathy gossiped.
“What! I better tell Lisa. She was going to sit with Grace at lunch today!” Cynthia jumped from her seat and ran to Lisa. Kathy followed her discreetly. She saw Cynthia murmur something to Lisa. Lisa gasped and ran to Roger, and whispered something to him, and then Roger went to another stranger and told him that, who told another, who told another and another...
“Ha! Who’ll want to hang out with her now.” Kathy snickered, watching Kelly Anderson telling someone much taller than her something quietly. Kathy snuck up behind her and nearly fainted when she saw who Kelly was telling Grace’s secret to. Mrs. Jones, the Principal.
“What! Who told you that?” Said Mrs. Jones in her raspy voice, wagging her bony finger towards Kelly.
“James told me,” Kelly said.
“Michelle said that to me.” James retorted.
“Kyle said that to me.” Michelle frowned.
“Roger told me.” Kyle folded his arms.
“Lisa told me.” Roger pointed to Lisa.
“Cynthia informed me about that.” Lisa shrugged.
“Uh-oh,” muttered Kathy, her heart beating like a bongo drum.
“Kathy told me that Grace cheated during the quiz,” Cynthia said, looking around. “Where is she?” Asked Mrs. Jones.
Kathy slowly came out of her hiding place.
“And who told you, Kathy Sanders?” Mrs. Jones asked.
Kathy sighed. “I made it up,” she admitted.
Everyone gasped. Kathy then had to go to Grace and apologize to her. After that, she had to stay at school for two extra hours and study. But that’s not important. What’s important was that Kathy realized gossip mongers never accomplished anything. She put in a lot of effort and finally aced her math quiz!
By
Prisheta Ravi Murugan
Grade 6, Ekya Byrathi
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