This morning, I was thinking what would have really happened, after all, if we stopped teaching for 6 months given the impositions of lock down and house confinements to abate COVID-pandemic. How would life change in the larger scheme of things and events at all if education just stopped for a bit? Why have educators been desperate to find modes and means of transitioning their instructions into some or the other way of online teaching? What was so urgent? Would the world doom if growing minds did not study for 6 months, or even one year? Indeed, one could argue that education, of all other things, is one sector that could most easily operate online. But what view and biases do we hold of education when we do make that statement? Do we mean to say that education is merely a passive from of passing or receiving information that has nothing to do with the presence of two bodies in any physical space? Do we mean to say that classroom is simply a transaction of information that can happen anywhere, anytime? Do we mean to say that it is nothing but pure administration - in both, bureaucratic and institutional terms - that schools are merely institutional mechanisms for delivering potions of lessons, dosages to those involved in the process of learning? In sum, what is teaching and learning, and how does one reduce it to an online interface with such forceful and quick ways into the mode of online medium?
On the one hand there is huge amount of debate all across the world on pedagogical methods that have become outdated - those that donot deliver students relevant skills for the exponentially changing world. Companies like google and facebook seemingly no longer recognize degrees of institutional training while seeking candidates. Students learn on the go, in many cases become autodidacts by consuming the already available content or by engaging not just online, but also in their own areas of practice. Indeed there is a huge disparity in terms of awareness and guidance. But even for that scenario, I am forced to think, what would have one year of delay cost in educating oneself? I am finding hard to reconcile how, where on one hand, there are debates to skip out of the rut of teaching in the typical modalities of sessions and lectures, whereas on the other hand, much if it succumbs to the unsaid pressure of continuing to carry out the same ways of educating online, in the most chauvinistic manner. In other instances, we are often advised to look at the world in the larger scheme of things, to think of time in a larger scale of the universe - and suddenly, all that is crushed and crashed into the medium of web-space. What essentially is going on? Why such a desperation?
We are certainly held in a double bind. The only rationalising theory that seems to drive our actions is the compulsion of living in a capitalist society. Engines of education have to keep themselves running so as to assure the flow of economy, in the macro as well as micro dimensions. At both the scales, the only dimension I can think of is the drive to maintain regular flow of money. All decisions are hurried and hushed to get to online track so as to maintain the rhythm and rhyme of regular payments. The narrative of "life must go on" seems merely a cover up. Life would have went on even if students were not studying under their so called teachers. Just that the kinds of the learners of any age would have found other things to engage in - online or otherwise. They would have found some ways to escape or engage with life. At home, they would have learnt gardening or cooking, or even cleaning. If allowed out, they would perhaps simply stroll, or observe - and I wonder how would these activities productively contribute to the lessons in class that sooner or later, everyone would come back to. And at this point, it is interesting to also consider the other way round - how is this phase of online learning going to impact physical learning when we do get back to it? Are we going to be chauvinistically celebrate the maintaining of the institutional continuum? Are we going to thump our chests for saving the six months of the magnanimous project called life? I have been disturbed with all these thoughts over some time now - this whole hurry and insecurity to push life into the computer space. Indeed, this is not to say that for many this is an escape from their troubled domesticities - but should we be addressing the escape, or finding alternative escapes for our lives? We need to think more rationally.
On the one hand there is huge amount of debate all across the world on pedagogical methods that have become outdated - those that donot deliver students relevant skills for the exponentially changing world. Companies like google and facebook seemingly no longer recognize degrees of institutional training while seeking candidates. Students learn on the go, in many cases become autodidacts by consuming the already available content or by engaging not just online, but also in their own areas of practice. Indeed there is a huge disparity in terms of awareness and guidance. But even for that scenario, I am forced to think, what would have one year of delay cost in educating oneself? I am finding hard to reconcile how, where on one hand, there are debates to skip out of the rut of teaching in the typical modalities of sessions and lectures, whereas on the other hand, much if it succumbs to the unsaid pressure of continuing to carry out the same ways of educating online, in the most chauvinistic manner. In other instances, we are often advised to look at the world in the larger scheme of things, to think of time in a larger scale of the universe - and suddenly, all that is crushed and crashed into the medium of web-space. What essentially is going on? Why such a desperation?
We are certainly held in a double bind. The only rationalising theory that seems to drive our actions is the compulsion of living in a capitalist society. Engines of education have to keep themselves running so as to assure the flow of economy, in the macro as well as micro dimensions. At both the scales, the only dimension I can think of is the drive to maintain regular flow of money. All decisions are hurried and hushed to get to online track so as to maintain the rhythm and rhyme of regular payments. The narrative of "life must go on" seems merely a cover up. Life would have went on even if students were not studying under their so called teachers. Just that the kinds of the learners of any age would have found other things to engage in - online or otherwise. They would have found some ways to escape or engage with life. At home, they would have learnt gardening or cooking, or even cleaning. If allowed out, they would perhaps simply stroll, or observe - and I wonder how would these activities productively contribute to the lessons in class that sooner or later, everyone would come back to. And at this point, it is interesting to also consider the other way round - how is this phase of online learning going to impact physical learning when we do get back to it? Are we going to be chauvinistically celebrate the maintaining of the institutional continuum? Are we going to thump our chests for saving the six months of the magnanimous project called life? I have been disturbed with all these thoughts over some time now - this whole hurry and insecurity to push life into the computer space. Indeed, this is not to say that for many this is an escape from their troubled domesticities - but should we be addressing the escape, or finding alternative escapes for our lives? We need to think more rationally.
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