Post-Covid Situation and Ideas to Overcome
The current situation caused by the global pandemic has become unprecedented especially for school children. They have never thought of staying out of school for such a long time. The sudden closure of schools for an unforeseen stretch of the period has laid some permanent and some short-term impacts on their socio-psychological development.
Many of us talked a lot about the impacts of this pandemic on children either on the local or global platform. But, to what extent we are discussing the post-covid situation? This situation will not remain the same for a long time. We will overcome the crisis soon. Now, we should not waste our valuable time being scared of Covid rather we should make up our minds to deal with post-covid challenges that students, teachers, and schools are going to face soon.
Our Current Situation
Before talking about the challenges that might come after the Covid pandemic in education, let’s have a glance at the most common impacts on children’s education left by the Covid pandemic.
Children are staying home for a long time. They are deprived of going to school. At the same time, they are bombarded by some invalid messages and news that generate fear. Students from poor economic backgrounds are witnessing their parents’ helplessness and struggle for living. In this situation, children are developing different mindsets mixed with confusion and fear. This may lead to traumatic problems for them. Some parents are panic-stricken by miscommunication and unawareness. Children are being over-protected by their parents. This crisis also caused the dropouts and the transfer of students from urban private schools to rural government schools which will generate social and environmental complications in children’s learning.
On the other side, teachers are also being affected by the pandemic. They have distress. They are facing a financial crisis. Many teachers have lost their jobs. Those who are still struggling in school in the name of online education on the one hand they need to muddle through modern digital tools which they have no skills of and on the other hand they are not getting their remuneration properly. Teachers themselves might have been suffering from covid-19, they might have lost their best ones, might become homesick, and might have gone into depression due to many reasons. The crisis also caused hindrance in their professional development chain. With all these ups and downs in mind, how can one focus on teaching and learning!
Post-covid Strategies
Moving forward, the post-covid challenges are new to everyone. Every school needs to research to find the actual conditions of students and interact with them in order to understand their psychological state before jumping straight into teaching. We need to bring change in our mindset. We need to address many social psychological and emotional complications of students and teachers. Who will tackle traumatic students? The obvious answer is TEACHERS. It is not a wonderful idea to reopen school immediately and start teaching-learning. Before that, it is very urgent to train teachers in such a way that they can handle every social, emotional, and psychological complication of not only children but also themselves caused by the Covid pandemic. The refreshment training to the teacher is essential before starting school for avoiding their personal distress.
The students who spent most of the time with confusion, fear, and distress need to be treated gradually. For this, teachers need to change their teaching strategies in such a way that can help them improve their mindset and at the same time learn. Teachers need to develop a trustworthy environment in school so that every student will get a chance to revive. For psychological and emotional rehabilitation; interaction, sharing, planning, group work, listening activities, motivational activities, fun in class, encouragement, field observation/visit, etc. are very essential.
And for those who have serious traumatic complications, the school needs to coordinate with psychologists. Similarly, teachers should be very careful to avoid the digital divide in the classroom. Those who are privileged with digital materials and those who are disadvantaged are sitting together in the classroom. Teachers have to handle this situation effectively. There is also a danger of dropout of children. This is very important to find out probable situations and interfere as soon as before causing dropout.
Conclusion
Covid pandemic has not only caused uncompensatable loss but also gave an opportunity to the teachers, students, and school. let’s utilize this opportunity and get ready for such another crisis. This applies to teaching and learning also. Every individual has been suffering from this pandemic. Now it is time to revive and run everything along with it. The education sector needs some improvements for post-Covid opening.
