Coping with learning, un-learning and re-learning

It was March 2020 and just like every year, we were gearing up for our session-end celebrations and eagerly looking forward to a new academic year. But it all came to an abrupt halt when the pandemic hit and the world went under lockdown.

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Though the education and learning came back on track rather quickly and we managed to connect with friends virtually, but in some corner of our hearts there was an emotional turmoil, followed by a long, endless wait for it all to end.

Online classes gave us some respite but the fear of being infected with the recurrent waves of the pandemic kept lingering in our minds.

When it was announced that all schools would be conducting offline classes this session, I was elated. The wait was finally over and I eagerly looked forward to meeting my friends in person, chatting and sharing our experiences, playing our favourite games together, enjoying our dance and music classes…the list was endless.

The first few days passed with a lot of excitement and then started another roller coaster ride. It started dawning on me that it is now an everyday affair where I need to wake up much earlier than before to be able to reach school in time, carry heavy bags after two years, suffer hunger pangs during classes and to top it all, the jump of two academic sessions. We were doing things our own way and had unlearnt many things, which we were required to relearn now to come to terms with the physical classes.

What I observed was that it was not only the students who were going through this unlearn-and-relearn phase , the school system, too, had evolved and the teachers had now become a lot more tech savvy and were incorporating that in our learning and day-to-day activities.

A lot of things had become digitalised and we were getting real-time information through various platforms, making things quite easy.

The schools are ensuring the physical and psychological well-being of students of all age groups, especially younger ones, to help us deal with this change.

All in all, I’m glad that we are back to normal functioning of school and that makes the charm of holidays seem a lot more precious now.

Nirbhay Dasgupta, Class VII, The Gurukul, Zirakpur