Caught in the Covid chaos

It’s all about finding calm in the chaos........

Jessica Singh, Class X, Budha Dal Public School, Patiala

If you had told me a few months ago that I would be spending the rest of my senior year of High School confined to my house, I would have stared at you in a great shock and utter disbelief!!

Yet in this time of great uncertainty, I find myself in an unexpected and unprecedented situation. With all celebrations and triumph of my board class experience having mercilessly stolen from me, I've had to grapple with apprehensions over unfinished courses and unclear future.

Further as the Covid-19 pandemic spreads across the entire nation, the fear of a prolonged crisis settles and weighs in my brain, immobilising me from any activity during the day. As I flip through the news each day, my concern and dismay for the future grows perpetually.

In this unforeseen and often gloomy environment, it's quite easy to fall prey to the weight of isolation from our friends and our communities. As humans, we are inherently social creatures and while the whims of text messaging and face-time may satisfy our needs in short-term, the demands of limited interaction with the world around us can take a harsh toll on our long-term psychological well-being.

However, I believe that Covid-19 introduces us with personal opportunities instead of burden if we shift our perception of circumstances.

While keeping those truly-affected in our minds, we can take this time as a chance to withdraw from the frantic world around us and reflect on talents that we've never got the chance to work on in the bustle of school life. 

In an increasingly tech-dominated age, it's often difficult to take a step back and get a clearer picture of our lives, but this extended isolation offers us the chance to do so. Personally, I've taken this time to reflect on the past four years of my High School journey by contemplating my successes, appreciating my failures and pondering ways, I can improve to become a more compassionate member of society.       For e.g, learning how to code was something I wanted to do and a skill that I know will be pertinent for my future. I believe there's a way for each of us to grow and develop in this time of great strife. Ultimately, our response to this new reality rests on our reaction to it. We can either view it as a hardship or take it as a challenge from the world to ameliorate ourselves .Taking the second path will allow us to become more compassionate and empathetic members of our community. As someone who has faced much change in the past, I've realised that it is only by appreciating the people and society around us that we can emerge from this crisis as resuscitated and improved people.

All it requires is optimism and positivity, so dear readers it's finally the time to slow down!!

---

Education amid pandemic

Vatsal Arora, Class XII, Yadavindra Public School, Mohali

COVID-19 has forced many great nations to get down on their knees.  With the employment rates falling and securities market crashing, the education of the coming generation is being overlooked. As of March 28, 2020, the coronavirus pandemic is causing more than 1.6 billion children and youth to be out of school in 161 countries. This is close to 80 per cent of the world's enrolled students. Since social distancing is of utmost importance, traditional schooling can't take place.

While the more rich and developed nations are somewhat ready to switch to e-classes or online classes, the not-so-fortunate nations are not. They do not have proper infrastructure or the expertise to engage into online classes at such a large scale. Education is still being discriminated between the haves and have not's. If you are reading this article online, you should consider yourself lucky. Children in far-off places neither have the logistics nor the trained teachers to help them with their education.

It goes without saying that the online teaching isn't as efficient as the traditional teaching. Even if the infrastructure is adequate, there is still some gap left. Well looking at things as they are, online teaching is probably the best option at the moment.

Teachers are trying their best to make ends meet, students are focusing on what matter.

This pandemic hasn't been easy even for the fortunate ones especially for the senior classes. With so much uncertainty in the future, one couldn't possibly plan ahead.

This problem becomes worse for the students who want to pursue their higher education abroad. College is one of the most crucial parts of a student's life and the coronavirus is not helping. The college admissions have been halted, entrance examinations delayed, this creates a pickle for everyone. 

 If we look at the online classes from a positive perspective, teaching can be done with the ease and comfort of your home. Teachers as well as students don't have to spend their time writing pages and pages of exercises when they can write it on their smart devices with ease. There is very less distractions during the classes as the students are practically sitting in isolation with their whole focus on the teaching. 

However, there have been pandemics before (well not in the modern era), but students as a part of  society have managed to face the struggles and overcome the difficulties before and I'm sure this time won't be any different. The government has been taking different educations like subsidising e-platform startups to promote online education. 

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way”