Corona Diaries: The Evolution of Education

When my nine year old attends online classes, my spouse and I are also participants of the class, albeit not by choice. He makes sure one of us is aligned with the proceedings of the class, so no tests, projects or activity sessions come as a surprise in the eleventh hour. At age 9, he knows how to be on a safe spot keeping us in the loop. This is exactly why some people keep me in Cc in mails that are not relevant for me. Both my son and these super smart corporate email senders know that there will come a day when they can conveniently share the blame. Had I known this technique earlier, I could have handled some corporate foxes better. Well, child is the father of man you see. We are currently on various topics of ultimate sleep inducing boredom like hemispheres, solstices and eclipses.

The fourth grader attends his classes comfortably seated on a recliner with water, chips, and pillows by his side, I should say we have come a long way in terms of primary education. I feel like a cave woman to have worn a despicable uniform, carried heavy bag and lunchbox to school. I took two buses to school and when I say that to my son, his expression makes me feel like a freedom fighter from the 40's. I already sound like my parents who ceremonially passed on the studying-under-the-streetlight story. *snore* .My grandmother confirmed that they had landline phones when only ten people owned them in the entire state. What is the point of having a phone when the person you want to call does not own one? This is what streetlight learning does to you.

Even though the pandemic is getting worse and jobs are on the edge, the only uninterrupted activity so far has been online learning. The fact that the students can actually go back to the recording of the day’s class whenever they want, makes my son to NEVER want to see it again. “I already suffered 40 minutes in that class and you want me to suffer more?” Well. Being on the receiving end of kids logic is no joke, my friends.

I have been a programmer for many years and all the logic I wrote are coming back to challenge me in the form of a nine year old. One day, we were going out when he was still playing outside. So I called him from the balcony and said ‘We are going outside now!’ and his response was perfect, optimized, short and painfully sweet. This is with a whole bunch of other kids in attendance all looking up at me from the ground.

 He yelled back "SO?" and looked up at me with a confused expression which said ‘why are you dissipating this irrelevant piece of information thereby interrupting my game?’

“So”. Right. Why did I announce that we were going out? I should have said ‘Come upstairs let’s go” or something on those lines so that he would know that he is supposed to come. It would have been a CTA (Call To Action). But I dint. I announced that we are going. Like in my Annual Appraisal form I write pages and pages about my achievements for the year and attach document after document and the employer says "So?"

By the by, when my family elders recited the ‘I studied under the streetlight and we dint have money and I never failed in any exam’ story, I did not, I repeat, I DID NOT reply “So?” That is exactly why that story keeps recurring generation after generation. May be if I said "So?" that story may finally rest in peace.