From coping with basics like internet connectivity to more structural issues such as curriculum and teaching methods, educators have come under tremendous stress since schools in India began shutting down mid-March. Since our nation went into lockdown on March 25 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic many teachers have been abruptly pushed into the uncharted “online classes.” The syllabi of national and international boards include many skills that cannot be taught and assess virtually. The attributes like communication skills, vocabulary, critical thinking, scientific attitude etc. are hard to assess remotely. Yet we accept those challenges happily. We teachers have been spending a lot of hours; over six or seven after-work hours a day only on calls with students and colleagues, to sort out the issues of online classes, brainstorming ideas and plans for our online classes over different applications. A couple of hours more go into gathering and preparing the videos and aids.
By the time we finish our work, it’s often late in the night. The students don’t understand or follow half our activities. Yet, we can’t take these online classes lightly. For one, the students are joined by their “quick-to-judge” parents who want “value for the fees paid.” we usually awake till 3 am almost every night, correcting assignments on our laptop or iPad. During the classes, we have no way of knowing who is paying attention and who is not. We teachers are going to have a nervous breakdown if this continues. On top of it there are many bitter examples of how exhausting and demotivating the experience has been for this 'overworked tribe' of teachers. A teacher has been teaching up to 80 or even more students at a time through her/his smartphone, on which she/he struggles to even see the students as many did not have a spare computer at home and could not buy one because of the lockdown.
Indeed, what happens during some of these online classes is potentially destructive rather than constructive. In the recent weeks, YouTube has been flooded with videos of “online classes go wrong.” These show students smoking, playing abusive videos, making troll videos and clips of their teachers, chatting with friends and logging in with odd names such as “His queen/Her king", "Rider Boi", "Devil king", “Kalippante kanthari” etc., while the teachers are trying to teach. They even login to online classes while eating food or speaking over the phone. Many teachers' IDs and phone numbers were even blocked by the students. As teachers we struggle to keep our heads above water, we also wonder if all our troubles are worth anything. In Spite of all these odds, teachers are facing a threat of a salary cut.
The Covid-19 lockdown will surely end someday. But the stress and scars will remind teachers of their own battle against Coronavirus. Finally, let's not forget the fact that the teacher's work is here to stay, though the classrooms have been closed.
