Due to the existing pandemic all the learners and teachers have no option other than switching to online learning and teaching.
The distance education mode has been in operation for a long time in limited capacities, but this continuing experience has been unbearable to all the parties. People always have a desire to change but when change occurs majority finds it extremely difficult to get adjusted to the new situation. Many articles, scholars and other sources use the term ‘new normal’ signifying that both people and society would settle with the new situation after the specific crisis is over.
In this letter the writer presumes that we have moved beyond ‘new normal’ since there are different and successive waves due to the mutations of the virus that introduce temporary consolation time periods while dragging again us back to the new version of the crisis thus making us face ‘recurrent new normal’.
Anxieties
Parents, educationists, ministry officials, teachers and students have been waiting for a speedier settlement of the situation. This endless waiting has caused various anxieties in the minds of many parties who are attached to teaching-learning continuum. Even in the 21st century, the Sri Lankan education system has not been endowed with the state-of-the-art technology everywhere.
The use of internet among the Sri Lankan population has increased in an unprecedented manner due to this sudden requirement.
But we are unable to consider it as the exact ‘digital literacy’. Even though there is an increase of internet and social media users, the disparity in relation to technology between rural and urban populations is unimaginable. The radio and TV channels and the newspapers report daily the lack of internet facilities even in close proximity to urban areas.
Some students are seen to be climbing hills and even the temporary huts built on trees to facilitate the online learning. Teachers are seen to be teaching outside homes and even cemeteries where the signals are available. Many other instances have reported that parents are taking their children so many miles on foot till they find a place where the learners can access the internet. But the internet service providers competitively offer numerous data plans and packages to their prospective clients.
These sources have a very good income as the public and private sector firms operate through work from home. We can perceive this situation as a struggle for everybody to survive as there is no other alternative possible.
Facilities
The cumulative effect of the lack of technological facilities has created many uncertainties in the minds of the students and parents.
Sri Lankan learners have been accustomed to learn in a regular pattern where they join others in an educational institute, meet each other daily, play while there is a break and learn in a highly stimulating environment.
The relationships within the institute have been strengthened through many co-curricular and extra-curricular activities throughout the year.
Sports, societies, field visits, projects, anniversaries and many other various functions allow the learners to develop unlimited social interactions.
Even during holidays, weekends and vacations they have been attending tuition classes and meeting friends in the neighbourhood. The travel restrictions and on and off lockdowns have aggravated their boredom curtailing much needed companionships.
When discussing with the students, teachers and the parents it was identified that there is an alarming rate of anxiety due to the use of internet which I would like to call ‘netxiety’.
One may counter argue that the learners of all ages are addicted to technology and internet then, why there is an issue in online learning. Using internet for pleasure and leisure and using it for academic purposes demarcate a greater difference.
As teachers we all know that different learners are gifted with different learning styles. But the situation has not favoured even the auditory or visual learners. There is a fear, nervousness and insecurity in the kinesthetic learners as well. Generally, the learners follow the instructions given by the teacher in a classroom context.
The immediacy of the teacher and his or her co-presence offer a greater security to backward, slow and weaker students. One of the regular complaints by the students is the absence of the rapport between the teacher and the learner.
Teachers
The physical closeness and the psychological intimacy between the learner and teacher matter to so many learners even though they do not express it openly. The learners in the primary grades are normally handled by the female teachers who are always perceived as the ‘sister figure’, ‘mother figure’ or even ‘grandmother figure’ depending on their age.
Early morning the learners arrive at school waiting to see the warm reception of the teacher but now the situation is worse. The critical factor is even though Sri Lanka has been offering free education for nearly eight decades, the present day parents who were the products of the same do not know the strategies to counter such situations by imitating the role of a teacher at home.
It is not expected that all the parents to be professional teachers but handling such critical situations are vital when we look at the situation from the child’s psychology. So the policymakers have to think of introducing parenting to all the undergraduate and postgraduate courses in higher educational institutes. Any negative psychological impact can affect the rest of the life course stages as well.
If we consider the physical issues raised by the learners and parents, the learners are suffering from many physical ailments such as headache, fatigue in the eye, neck pain and back pain.
As they sit in the same position for a longer time periods their neuro-muscular coordination would become weak furthering long-lasting, and adverse physical and psychological effects.
Already, the educationists, psychologists, policymakers and researchers express their concerns on personality development of this cohort since the socialisation pattern at critical transition age has got affected. Many parents are worried what would be the consequences if this situation continues further.
The teachers tend to mention the same physical and psychological reasons. In a physically present classroom the teachers exactly know what their learners are doing but in online mode since most of the students are switching off their videos, the teachers are unsure of their learners’ active participation.
Productive
As a teacher, practitioner who experiences this situation, the writer too personally feels that the mere presence cannot be considered as productive learner engagement. The major issue for this is that we have not given enough training in online teaching. Majority of the teachers in all educational institutes suffer from low technological literacy.
On the other hand those who have computer literacy were not trained specifically to teach in online mode. So the use of internet to deliver lectures online has created an anxiety among the teachers as well.
Most of the teachers were trained to teach in real classroom contexts but as the classroom context has suddenly changed the demand to the adaptability to the same cannot be met by all the teachers alike. So some of the great teachers in off-line classes may become victims of the technology to be very poor presenters.
As the delivery of the content become less enthusiastic both the teachers and the learners gets their own images shattered. The loss of identity as an excellent performer would be a great loss for the years to come. The outcome of the ‘recurrent new normal’ cannot be calculated immediately. While the relevant authorities may provide solutions to the visible short-term effects it would be harder to identify or forecast the medium-term or long-term effects.
Education has been a social institution that has brought so many latent, negative outcomes after so many decades. Further to the existing issues the latest one is the online examinations through which we are going to evaluate the performances of the learners.
Even though we have been able to manage teaching after so much struggle, the final phase creates more anxieties in the minds of teachers, learners and even parents. Since the younger generation of teachers easily master the technological know-how, the prior generation of teachers have to struggle a lot.
In situations like exams we have to maintain fairness at the highest possible levels. The unevenness among different regions would indefinitely affect the ultimate outcome of the learners and there is no guarantee that we would be able to solve all these issues within a short period of time.
As Sri Lankan parents and learners consider exams as major turning points in their lives, the fear of evaluations would have a great psychological and social cost. There are no quick resolutions to counter all these issues and the Presidential Task Force related to education with higher educational institutes should consider all these matters seriously.They have to develop a long-term plan to introduce a specific quota of all curriculums to follow online teaching, learning and evaluations even when there is no pandemic.
Even primary students should be introduced simple exercises, activities through online. The familiarity to online learning and teaching could be enhanced through that.
As it has become a part of the education system, nobody would complain that online learning and teaching would be an issue. Rather than considering the online learning and teaching an element that brings stress, depression and anxiety we have to make it a result-oriented tool that everyone loves.
The writer is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka +94 77 559 0696 / [email protected]