VIRUDHUNAGAR: We learn and unlearn several things through the course of our lives. And it is not uncommon to be back at square one, considering we still have our basics intact. Sadly, that is not the case with everyone, especially young children.
The pandemic has forced schools to shut down, bringing down the curtains on learning for many children, despite there being provisions for online classes. To set things right, two groups of teachers are running open-community schools in Virudhunagar district, creating a huge impact in the lives of children and parents.
It was when the teachers were called to schools in June to conduct admissions that the lot at Amathur Government Higher Secondary School understood that several parents had a common worry. Most of them were concerned about the deteriorating mental health and discipline of their children.
The teachers also saw that the children had forgotten even alphabets and numbers. A brainstorming session among five teachers led them to a solution - if students cannot come to schools, can teachers go to their houses? A consultation with school headmistress, Sharmila, painted a vivid roadmap for them.
"Teachers would identify an area and inform one of the children about the community class, and ask him/her to gather other students. We used to go in bikes as buses were not running at the time. By the time we reach, the children would have assembled under a tree or on a terrace. We gave them dictations of simple words, made them recall alphabets, taught simple mathematical calculations, and other activities," said Asha (36), a teacher. All the SOPs were followed during our classes, she added.
"While educated parents made their children attend online classes, or taught them by themselves, children belonging to poor households or illiterate parents were helpless. Their parents had to earn the daily bread amid the pandemic," said Kaleeshwari (40), a teacher working in the same school. However, with the reopening of schools, the teachers had to stop their special classes.
"It was at a crucial time that they decided to step up for the sake of children. Their mental health was deteriorating and their biological clocks were in a shambles. They used phones for playing games most of the time, in the pretext of attending online classes," opined a parent.
Anushamalarvizhi (36), another parent, said, "A teacher is needed to bring in some discipline in a child’s life. Children, sometimes, do not listen to parents but when teachers say the same thing, they do."
Similar was the context when Dr C Chellapandian, a history professor, decided to seek the help of his students in villages to conduct classes for children in May. "As many as 30 students, whom I had taught before, readily agreed to the idea. En Maanavargal, as we have named the project, runs in four villages in the district. Along with the school syllabus, children are also taught handwriting, local history, and about medicinal plants and how to identify them.
This gives them a break from the stress they have been enduring,” said Chellapandian. Over 100 children have been taking these classes. Fourteen-year-old Karthikeyan, one of the beneficiaries of this project, said while online classes were informative, the presence of En Maanavargal teacher made it easier to clear doubts.