Absence makes our heart grow fonder. This line has been so true especially in these days! This is what our students have conveyed – “Love for our teachers, love for our School, love for being in the actual classroom is what we are getting so fonder”.
Sometimes we realize how meaningful and crucial something is for us only when we lose it. As school teachers, the COVID19 outbreak acutely made us aware that we lost something when we had to suddenly shift to 100% online teaching. This change clearly had an enormous impact on education and on student wellbeing.
We have been for very long now fervently praying and wishing away Covid 19 Pandemic from our lives. Also one thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that human connections, wellbeing, and education are intrinsically connected. Wellbeing and human connection are related because we feel better when we are connected to other humans. Wellbeing of a community is very essential and vital. Community wellbeing is about healthy relationships and feeling positive in a group or in a classroom. Similarly, learning and human connection are interrelated as learning tends to be stronger when we act and reflect together in joyful collaboration.
With vaccine being available soon and with Delhi Government’s announcement of the re-opening of the cbse schools in delhi ncr after the vaccination, hope of being back to school, being back with friends and teachers is being visible. Also with schools now re-opened in some States, indeed back to school season really does not seem to be far behind.
Many of you who have been inside homes, are rearing to fly out of the confines of your homes waiting desperately to stretch your crammed legs. Surely, your brains are also excited to start working again interacting face to face after a long period of virtual interaction.
School is not just about learning and sharpening of cognitive skills, but a place that nurtures our physical and emotional well-being. We are thirsting to meet our friends, our dearest teachers, be in our favourite hang-outs in the school such as our canteen chattering spots and our spirited playfields, our happy water-cooler small chit-chat times, our noisy laughter-filled corridors.
Seeing friends only through screen time does not have the same impact as when we meet them face to face in the school campus. There is so much fun element in being in the school campus! Hence, it is quite natural for us to be preening our feathers to fly out as soon as possible. We are all focusing on the happiness, love and joy that it would bring along.
We have been able to sustain and prove our resilience throughout the pandemic and will now not be so easily shaken by any circumstance. We have taken control of our own lives, happiness and learnings! Our dependence needs to be on the inside of ourselves.
Let us HOPE well, HEAL & HELP ourselves and those around us. We all have kept the belief –‘If Winter comes, the Spring cannot be far behind’… alive in our hearts. Let us wait eagerly for our going back to actual happy school days. We sincerely want a new equilibrium.
Children have also started echoing and pouring out lines and thoughts with the same feeling of longing to be back to school again…
Poem shared by a Prudence child…
I miss my school a great deal
Friend’s endless chats and that shared meal.
The Math numerical and the History lessons
The Theatre classes which help us improve our expressions
The literary activities and the life skills classes
But social distancing has to be practiced by masses
Social distancing can however also be done in actual classes
And even when we go in our school buses
For it’s enough of this confinement
We seriously need our friends and be in re-alignment
