When Virtual school took my class!!

This Teacher’s Day I saw many posts floating around thanking teachers, but one  of them was outstanding. It was the one, wherein a man was bowing to corona virus .. considering him as his “Guru”. Actually speaking there is nothing in wrong in that, because we indeed learnt a lot during these tough pandemic times. And out of many things that we did for the first time, one unforgettable thing that parents especially mothers have done and are still doing is “Virtual Schooling” . 

“Work from home” is a very common thing for many multinationals and IT people, hence many would be used to it. Maids are bound to take offs and that to extended offs; so even that is manageable. But this “Virtual Schooling” and that too from Nursary level is something neither any teacher nor any parent or student has ever done. So, though we were little skeptical about it, as we had already taken Jr. Kg admission for my elder son, we decided to go ahead with this adventure. 

Looking at my son’s overall interest in schooling I decided to block 30 min time before and after to manage this whole show. But as the days were passing by I had to face new challenges every day and that was just making life tough for me, him and everyone around. I was losing hope that this idea of virtual schooling is ever going to work…until one day when my friend inadvertently shook me up. 

“I dunno what I am going to do with my son’s studies ya!”  - I was talking to a friend with list of complaints… “ Arey but uska problem kya hai?? “ – she asked a very obvious question 

I was quiet… She asked again and said- “Oh come on.. you have handled tough clients and now you are scared of a kid?” 

 I just said …”chal I will call you later?” and escaped. 

This one question changed my approach towards this problem coz I had list of complaints but I was ignoring the “Reason” behind the behavior. “Effectiveness of communication or a strategy always depends on the depth of its problem statement” – such basic rule but I had totally forgotten it. 

I decided to observe his behavior and found that – he is comfortable in literacy class but Hindi class annoys him. He is okay with activities but writing is something he hates. He love animal stories but when teacher was sharing Mahabharat story or bal ganesh story he forced me to shut the laptop. In short, he was “uncomfortable” with things he did not know and he was ‘covering his ignorance with lack of interest’. 

Now I had 2 options… 1. Keep calm and let him learn things at his speed or 2. Help him correlate things with his area of interest and create an “Interest Pull” for studies. … I chose the 2nd one. 

I decided to stop forcing or pleading him for the school because going to school is his responsibility as well!! One fine day I just said – “Its school time. I am going in the room” I just went in and started the laptop. To my surprise he just walked in and sat in front of the laptop. It was my first victory!! It improved my confidence and helped me make a calm and pleasant beginning for virtual sessions. 

It was time for the next one – building interest for unknown subjects like hindi. I went by a simple rule of addressing unknown – that is – “get to know it” … more and more often. I tried to play lots of youtube videos of hindi rhymes and stories but I failed miserably …. Coz he had option to change the channel. 

It was time for next trick… 

One day I was chatting with my MIL and she casually mentioned that Vikram (My hubby) used to make charts of his important study topics and used to stuck them even on the bathroom walls. BINGO!! I liked the idea. I made colourful charts of all the topics that were new to him and stuck them in his room’s walls, door and on his cupboard. The idea was to make those topics more familiar to him. 

And It worked!!! 

He started discussing about those topics, which helped me initiate an informal conversation about studies with him. He started asking me about names of animal, vegetables, colours in hindi and his grasping of hindi improved dramatically. It was time to celebrate again !! 

These two incidents made me hopeful about addressing the 3rd and the most difficult issue – making him inclined for writing… I tried tracing with stencils… teachers recommended writing letters on Rava plates, so tried that… tried building his interest with new pencils and notebooks… but nothing seemed to work. 

And then a day came when I got the key to his interest….rather he himself gave that key in my hands. My son is crazy about animals and whenever he learns about any new species of animals he starts demanding animal toys of the same species. One day I told him – “why don’t you make list of all the new animals in one go and give it to us?” … and to my surprise he sat with a pencil and paper to make a list. And in some time we made list of quite a few animals. After that whenever I wanted him to practice writing, I just had to get the animal correlation … like making list of animals name from an alphabet or ordering food for his toy animals etc etc .. 

It’s not that virtual schooling has become a cakewalk now or neither it’s a very utopian thing. Afterall a child is not a child if he/she does not puzzle his parents. 

But now my perspective has changed from listing complaints to identifying Problems and resolving them creatively. Afterall, “ Aakhir rishtey hum uski Maa lagte hai !!