Dateline Mussoorie: The present lockdown came into force just as schools in the hill-station were on the verge of finishing or getting ready for a fresh academic session at the end of their long-winter vacation.
This is where technology stepped in whereby private schools turned to online platforms while others like the Mahatma Yogeshwar Saraswati Shishu Vidya Mandir, Mussoorie have turned to WhatsApp.
This is no small task when you consider that there are over seven hundred students in Saraswati Shishu Vidya Mandir, Mussoorie. But successfully, for days on end now, timetables to chapters; lesson plans to worksheet and YouTube links and activities are being exchanged between the teacher and the taught. You will find that the children here are not from the privileged strata. They come from humbler social backgrounds – most from the villages abutting the hill station.
From activities such as Yoga, creative handicraft, being helping hands to their parents, composing poems, essays are some of the suggestions that teachers are listing for their students.
“As teachers, we send two subjects plus a task for students from class 9-12. One subject and an extra activity for those from class 5-8 via WhatsApp, with promising feedback from our students,” adds Principal Manoj Payal. “Though these interactive sessions are a boost to the students and the teachers, yet this is no substitute for regular classes,’ he tells us, “the only satisfaction is the fact that in extraordinary times like these, we are being able to do something for our wards, even if its limited to an hour or so.”
For teachers from both government and private schools, the common challenge has been to ensure that somehow their wards are not left gaping at a lost academic year and have been looking for innovative ways via technology to engage their students. A first for all.
