WICCI Webinar Series On Disruptive Education - The New 21st Century Model, Concludes With Thought-Provoking Takeaways

LUCKNOW || The three-edition webinar series organised by WICCI Elementary Education focusing on the “Disruptive education - the new 21st century model, concluded on Saturday. WICCI Elementary Education India, vertical of Women’s India Chamber Of Commerce and Industry, founded by Dr Harbeen Arora and under the Presidentship of Jasmin Kumar.

The session had an excellent panel of industry experts and was moderated by Nirali Dagli, Principal at Calorx Public School. Neerja Singh highlighted, the modalities of a blended model of schooling will evolve as we go along, what is more important is the fundamental ways in which teaching and learning is changing. The PLC (Personal Learning Cloud) is a growing mix of online courses, social and interactive platforms, and learning tools. The demand will be for education that is customizable, trackable, and measurably effective.

A teacher in the future will be more like a mentor. For the earlier cohorts there was lesser self awareness, less insecurity, and fewer comparisons to others. Kids today are exposed to the stimuli that fuel these comparisons every single day from the internet. It is hard for the parents to understand this anxiety.

Remember Zaira Wasim. The 19 year old, who won a National Award for best supporting actress in Aamir Khan’s Dangal? She came out on Instagram twice some time back. Her Instagram post was to share that she has sometimes popped 5 anti-depressants every day, facing anxiety attacks and to announce her decision to quit films.

She said that she wants to take a break from everything including her work, her school, her social life and especially social media. These are trying times, thanks to the virtual world. We must acknowledge their anxiety, show compassion and inform ourselves on emotional well-being.

Rolii Singh explained that the reality is the covid is here to stay as per the UN for next year at least. It is a basic model of denial and acceptance. Initially the first 21 days of lockdown were denial, saying it will be over, and then there was second lockdown that we faced and having said that the denial phase gradually set into acceptance, it seeped in with lot of anxiety, fear, lack of motivation and determination. For mothers especially multitasking made a lot of sense now as it was family responsibility and office altogether operational from one place and children faced the brunt of it.

And now as its unlock 3 we all are set for work ,some have joined the offices again,some are still working from home yet for children the scope of getting the feel of school structure seems a distant world still, having said that all the stakeholders of schools be it the administration,the teachers,the children ,the parents .It will be a different set of concerns for all yet one thing that everyone will operate from is anxiety.

Minal Desai pointed her views, I think the pandemic was challenging for the entire human race. But for educators it was a double whammy. We had to not only take care of ourselves but also those entrusted to us like our students, teachers, parents and colleagues. A single anxious statement from a school leader could send the entire community in a tizzy. Our teachers are hero, we have heard so many inspiring stories that it makes me wonder.

One of our Hindi teachers was an extremely loving but not a technical person. The entire school goes online! She learnt how to navigate the whole in flat 7 days! and today she designs interactive lesson plans. In the past 4 months, our teachers have collectively logged in more than 70 webinars and training sessions. They are on a roll! Secondly, we have begun with a pilot project of microschools where 7-8 students of grades 5th to 7th meet every day in person and study with one facilitator. The whole idea is that children are capable of learning on their own. We need to step in only when asked for. This has changed our understanding of what kids can do and what education can be in the future.

Kinjal Pathak think that technology which was considered so far as big hindrance for education is now being used for saving education in this pandemic. It has its challenges. Both side i.e. teacher and student has to learn to adjust to this change, Teachers find it to difficult to teach without eye contact and human touch, whereas students easily get diverted while learning and find difficult to concentrate. This is Temporary and immediate available Solution but it can never replace teacher's physical teaching.

Convincing parents for using technology for learning, itself is big challenge and simultaneously preparing teachers and students to adapt to this change is also a big task in front of Educators. So far they have succeeded in convincing and streamlining the contact less online learning process. Second roadblock faced by educators, is availability of hardware and communication facility. Things get worsened if parents are not educated enough to bring the change.