Remarkable International Schools in UAE.

irst there was nothing in terms of formal
Feducation. Then came the teacher, a Guru who
took his band of pupils out into the open to teach
things right there where it mattered. When things got
complicated and needed explanation, along came a
board which in all likelihood was brown in the eastern
and mid-eastern context given that we and the rest of
the world below the Mediterranean were sun-baked
and used things sun-baked. Those above the Med
discovered paint and possibly found the colour black to
be most interesting!
For over a century teaching, education and everything
elementary therein had to have a black board to
explain. The more resource-endowed went green a few
decades back. But for the rest, it was always black.
Intermittently there was the computer screen and
screens of myriad dimensions and capacities.
And then in the 20th year of the 21st century came the
virus. In a matter of days, public places including
schools and educational institutions were rendered
soul-less and eerily empty. With schools and
educational institutions closed, pad-locked and
protected, students had only one respite for education.
The ubiquitous gadget screen.
What was till a while an option has today become the
mainstay and from the looks of it may remain so for
quite some time given that the virus has brought about
a scare which makes screens a better option than being
seen in person. Isolation being the only way to control
the spread of the pandemic, the condition may continue
for quite some time.
But how long?? Already the strains of isolation and
staring at a soul-less screen is causing the kind of
fatigue we never imagined. What felt good for a while is
now turning into a nightmare which comes with a mix of
excessive screen time and zero human in-person
interaction. What was in the past ‘started and ended’,
today starts but never seems to end gracefully. You
could earlier speak with the teacher and create a
certain warmth and understanding with the subjects,
but this is totally missing with screen-time. Speaking of
warmth and empathy, you cannot really feel the same in
the absence of real people. Empty rooms and
computers just do not suffice.
you cannot. Part of the feeling of competition comes
from being with people and feeling the vibes. The same
just does not happen in inanimate and cold environs of
machines, how-so-ever ‘intelligent’ they be.
That said, the pandemic did bring its share of plusses in
the field of education, some of which in the context of
poorer countries make a lot of sense. For a start, it has
done away with the need of ‘infrastructure’, the one
thing which defined, distinguished and differentiated
between good and not-so-good schools. Irrespective of
classrooms and even teachers to an extent, the new
form of education can impart decent learning when it
comes to certain streams and subjects.
Education, the online way, can be imparted right where
the student is. This reduces education time right down
to its basics shorn of all the hype and hoopla. For
countries like India and the entire sub-continent where
education at the primary level, is the real problem area
and is the reason behind human resources being way
behind other countries in understanding and in
productivity, education in small booster doses can be
the best way to address the gaps.
The other way in which the recent change in dynamics
in education is helpful is in the form of better teaching
itself. With dedicated learning and development
platforms coming up on the internet with unerring
regularity, the best teachers in the subject need to only
make videos of their content and upload it for the
students. Some, private academies have uploaded
entire content that can educate students to crack
important higher-education exams like IIT-JEE, CET etc.
The changing dynamics of the classrooms in the end
shows us something most of us always knew - that
technology is a two-edged sword which needs to be
handled with care and caution. But if done so, it can
very easily and efficiently take care of the bottlenecks
that plague fields as significant as education and
industry, which in the Indian context remains
pernicious and very deep-rooted. T R
- Purushoutham M
Another thing - How does one keep trace of time and
progress vis-à-vis the rest of the classroom? In reality,
30 February | 2021