‘Time to teach kids to be self-reliant’

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 16

As schools are shut and children are engaged in online education from home, Romila Sharma, Principal of SPPS Convent School, Begowal, feels that it is time to teach some virtues to children like being self-reliant, family-oriented and being sensitive to the environment.

Romila says like most other schools, her teachers too have been conducting online classes, sending videos of solved sums, sending assignments and taking assessments. At the same time, she is also asking her staff to train students in life skills, which would help them later in their life.

“We have organised a number of activities for the Qstudents. These were aimed at building a strong character of the students. We tell them not to spoil their routine. They should develop the habit of going early to bed and rising up early in the morning. We have helped children maintain a good healthy routine even at home by giving them a time-table of tasks that they should perform in the day asking them to devote some time to physical activities in the mornings and evenings.

“We tell our children to help their parents by hanging washed clothes, folding them after drying and keeping them back in the cupboard. We engage them by telling them about preparing dishes without use of fire. Recently, we did an activity of sowing seeds, feeding birds and keeping pots of water for them in the open,” says she.

The principal said a daily activity she was asking her students to do was writing 10 current affair questions and answers in their copies. “They are told to daily check the news updates and make questions out of them. To develop intelligence, we are sending them riddles and puzzles daily that keep their minds engrossed. We have organised online competitions, including those on debates, declamations and poetry, so that they develop speaking skills,” she said.

Romila gushes, “The best part during the conduct of online sessions has been that students have responded really well. As we have celebrated each day with them like Earth Day, Gurpurb, etc, we feel that their imagination has been widened. They have shown emotional intelligence in their tasks. Their relationships and bonding at home and with teachers has further strengthened. They have learnt the art of self-study. Needless to say, they have become technically sound. Even our teachers have had a new learning experience, have remained busy in preparing learning modules for the students and also attended webinars being organised off and on.”

She adds, “Even though our school is located in a rural belt and most of the children (2,500) come from surrounding villages, it was not that difficult to transform schooling from centuries-old chalk-talk tradition to technology-based teaching. There is no child who does not have at least one smartphone at home. The problem surfaces if there are two siblings in a family and one mobile and both have to attend online classes simultaneously. In such cases, we have told parents not to worry. Tell the elder child to attend live classes. For the other one, we are sending recorded videos, solved answers and step-wise mathematical solutions.”