Virtual studies

COVER STORY

For the past five months, a large number of students across the planet have been relaxing at home - courtesy the pandemic. Of course, many parents have probably become suicidal and are requesting the authorities to open schools, but that is not the point.

Since there was hardly any chance of schools reopening any time soon, it was decided all over the world that students would attend classes online.

Like others, Pakistani students were ecstatic! Schools closed indefinitely, what fun! Thousands of generations of students’ prayers had come true.

But after the initial euphoria settled, they realized that technology – their best friend – was going to become the reason their studies would continue. And slowly online classes became the norm.

Of course, there were a lot of hiccups and problems initially during the virtual classes – some of these problems genuine, others … well, let’s say they were not real.

The kids nowadays are more technologically savvy as compared to the majority of the older generation. Taking advantage of this, they were bound to play their teachers – at least in the beginning. It took some time for the teachers and parents to catch on but till that happened, these kids had their fun.

Teachers expect their students to act out once in a while. So many of them were ready for this.

During a virtual class, I heard one primary teacher almost on the verge of crying. Her students, who were probably a handful in real-time, were a nightmare in the virtual class.

She requested her students multiple times to sit down and look at her, but one child constantly sat with his back to her. She kept asking him to look at her, but he didn’t budge and maintained the pose throughout the class.

Another student kept running off and being brought back by her mother. The teacher kept saying, “S, please, can you tell me the answer?” But S would leap out of her seat and run away. It took her mother’s threats and maybe a slap or two – off camera, of course - to get the kid to sit through the class.

Other children were lying down and rolling around. And at least one was wearing a superhero costume with a mask, and was answering the questions in a gruff voice.

To give the teacher credit, she did not show any reaction to this and after the giggles and squeals from the class died down, she carried on as if it was normal to have a superhero in class.

Another class was going wrong as the poor teacher kept asking students if they could see her screen share after which several children shut off their cameras. This led to a screaming match with the poor teacher asking the kids to come back to class, to switch on their cameras and to sit down. And one child kept dancing on camera – his mother said he makes a lot of TikTok videos and the only way he had agreed to sit for the class was that he would keep dancing.

Hmmm, such parents should revisit the parenting style of their parents. No parent or teacher would waste time ‘requesting’ or ‘pleading’ with their kids. I don’t condone beating of children, but I remember the time when kids were more disciplined and respected their elders.

My aunt would slap her sons whenever they tried to bunk tuition (the tutor was also quite brutal), which was often, and it worked.

I am sure this generation is appalled at the lack of discipline in our children. It is quite tough to tell them that beating does not achieve anything – didn’t it?

Coming back to the virtual classes, the teary teacher kept requesting her students to sit, but it took a lot of pleading and intervention from family to keep the class going.

It was quite tiring to watch these classes and I felt very sorry for the teachers – what an exhausting ordeal these online classes are for many of them.

Teachers really deserve more money to do this job, more perks and long, pampered vacations.

If you think older students are any better, think again! In the initial classes, many students kept shutting off their cameras blaming the bad Wi-Fi and going back to sleep. It was only after the teachers took strict actions and threatened to cut marks if students didn’t attend via video that all students started using their cameras for all their classes.

Young people believe they can fool everyone, all the time. One student, Z, thought she was smarter than the teacher. So, in one class, the teacher shared a screen to explains something, and Z began doodling on the screen, believing no one could see what she was doing.

As if that wasn’t enough, she proceeded to scribble her thoughts as some students do during a long lecture. And she wrote, “This class is sooooo boring.”

Maybe she could have gotten away with this but she felt quite brave and signed her name below this, leaving no doubt in the mind of her teacher that it was Z.

When her teacher rebuked her, she denied that she had done it, despite her incriminating signature below her message.

Another student kept pretending his Wi-Fi was bad, and video gets hung all the time. He missed several classes like this until one day his ‘hung video’ was revealed as fake when his brother was acting out and he was seen running behind the ‘frozen image’ of the student, followed by a flying chappal.

The student was punished, of course; his marks were deducted and his parents also got a video call from the teacher. He never had another Wi-Fi glitch after this.

And the last story is the best: a teacher’s young son got hold of her phone and managed to get through to many of her students who logged in thinking it was their teacher.

What these students found out was a child pleading with his mother (the teacher) to let him order pizza. He kept screaming for pizza. This child was hardly more than eight years old, but he sure knew how to get the attention of his mother. By this time, the students who had logged in were interacting with the child, who had decided to not only take the class on a virtual tour of his house, but was also spilling deep dark secrets of his family.

My favourite was the one about his ‘chohti phupoo’ who was a ‘churail’ (witch) because she ate all his chocolates; and how his chachi (aunt) was rude to dadi (grandmother). It was hilarious and by the time his mother found out, her whole class was quite invested in the family’s problems.

This reveals how things have changed due to the pandemic. Teachers and parents will have more knowhow of the digital platforms than they had before by the time it is over.

It will be amazing as more and more older people will be on digital platforms. I think this will help change the content being offered to suit the taste of the older audience. They have learned to order food, groceries and other things.

The younger generation has lost the edge they had over the older generation; now they will have to find other ways to be different from the older generation.