Covid19: Teacher’s Role.

 This month on 5^th we will be celebrating Teachers Day in an unusual way. Due to strategies adopted to prevent COVID-19 disease transmission, (at least till 31^st August), schools are closed. So, it is possible that Teacher and Student may not be able to greet each other (in person). Such unprecedented situation is causing anxiety and distress among students, all of which are natural psychological responses to the randomly changing condition. But more important and worrisome is the adverse behavioral and psychological changes that are coming in children and students due to restricted social interaction. Neglecting this, however we have focused our effort and deciding policy direction only on protection of physical health and mitigating economic distress. We must understand adults can recoup economic damage by extra work but if young student’s temperament is damaged it will be a permanent loss. Adverse effects and loss due to it will be far reaching than physical and economic one and spill over economic progress in the long run. Rapidly expanding mass hysteria and panic regarding COVID-19 may beget enduring psychological problems in students which could potentially be even more detrimental in the long run than the virus itself. Like individual losses (smell and test) due to Covid19, if Entrepreneurship or Risk-taking capacity is also lost in students (future citizen), can we hope to grow economically any time near future? To put in short, so far debate is between present “Live and Livelihood “, but it is time to debate which is more dangerous Covid19  or Fear of Covid19 for country’s future.

 As said above, a very crucial, but apparently overlooked issue is the psychological impact of COVID-19 outbreak on toddlers and adolescents. Learned experiences through environmental factors during early childhood engender the fundamentals for lifetime behavior and success, as it is a crucial phase for cognitive, emotional and psychosocial skill development. During a severe pandemic like COVID-19, community-based mitigation programs, such as closing of schools, parks, and playgrounds has disrupted children’s usual lifestyle and promoting distress and confusion. Stressors, such as monotony, disappointment, lack of face-to-face contact with classmates, friends and teachers, lack of enough personal space at home,  all have potentially triggered troublesome and even prolonged adverse mental consequences in children. Further during the COVID-19 pandemic a huge number of parents have suffered financial losses or on the verge of unemployment, further intensifying the negative emotions and transmitting the same to their children. Having to cope up with these changes’ children are becoming more demanding, and exhibiting impatience, annoyance and hostility, which in turn causing them suffering from physical and mental violence by overly pressurized parents. While online classes and assignments have been the only effective way for continuing education at this situation, experts have already cautioned about being over-burdened. (All parents cannot afford or /and arrange for online education of wards, this itself is causing exclusion and discrimination and may increase dropout rate, and other social evils like child labor and child marriage, but that is the topic for a separate full article.). To avoid this, teachers should advice parents to appreciate home-confinement during COVID-19 as a mere opportunity to promote healthier parent-child relationships by correct parental strategies and strengthen family bonding by spending more quality times together. It should be emphasized that even in this time of physical distancing, it’s critical to seek and give social support and connection with/to others. The closure of all educational institutions may increase the number of mentally depressed young people. So parents should be trained to easily identify the signs of anxiety, panic attacks, depression and suicide (among children). In short, to the extent possible and to the maximum possible students, specific psychological needs, healthy lifestyles, and good parenting guidance must be addressed through the same online platform by teacher and or experts.

 

However on the other hand, under Covid19 mitigating strategies, social distancing is affecting how much parents wanting or allowing children to socialize with others, what they desire in children, and they are preferencing for more conventional thinking over openness to new experiences. Spending time with others is beneficial to mental and physical health but is restricted (even in people's closest, most established relationships) when there is a risk of infectious disease.  Now people evaluate strangers more negatively and have heightened tendencies to avoid them.  This tendency can be passed down to offspring. Living during a period with a high risk of infection is adversely shaping how children view themselves in relation to their friends and community and their risk-taking attitude. The longer the corona virus threat lingers, the more these changes may reflect not just changes in momentary behaviors, but changes to be more enduring aspects of children's personalities. The psychosocial risks (mental health impacts) for children in this situation are apparent, as they are out of touch with schools, classmates, and playmates, and deprived of physical activities and social activities.

 

Mass fear of COVID-19, rightly termed as “corona-phobia”, is generated due to perceived risk of acquiring the infection etc. and generating negative psychological responses and avoidance reaction among students and common people. But more so, psychological distress levels have been influenced by the huge amount of (mis)information at the fingertips coming and shared via social media. Distrust towards others in terms of disease spread and perceived inefficiency of the government and healthcare services to combat the disease is the focus of this media’s messages. The director-general of WHO has also referred this to “corona virus infodemic” which is breeding fright and panic by laying out unchecked mind-boggling rumors, flamboyant news propaganda and sensationalism. Since sensationally charged and appalling contents draw the most attention and garner the most developments in social media, several users pretend COVID-19 symptoms to gain easy popularity and sowed mass confusion and panic. Many bloggers, groups or personal users in YouTube, WhatsApp, etc. started the business of making a profit of COVID-19’s popularity in many impulsive and unpredictable courses of action. The deluge of conflicting information, misinformation and manipulated information on social media should be recognized as a global public-health threat” and to counter it honest transparent communication should be ensured so people/students do not seek information from unreliable alternative sources and thus spread rumors. A comprehensive “information diet”-based approach is urgently needed to be delivered through traditional/online media after receiving proper training by health information professionals. For students, teacher can and should take this role (while in online session too) on themselves to protect soft mind of students. Circumstances also demand that teacher teach students to navigate through all misinformation and fake news that infest the media landscape today. Like the legendary “Hamsa” our student must be able to assimilate and absorb and discard the lies. 

 

Apart from stress etc., the side effect of above (misinformation) is that, at a few places and in a few communities, the COVID-19 outbreak has given rise to stigmatizing the victim. Resulting in factors like fear of isolation, racism, discrimination, and marginalization with all its social and economic ramifications. A stigmatized community tends to seek medical care late (and sometime privately outside the glare of public scrutiny) and hide important medical and travel history, increasing the risk of community transmission. In order to prevent discrimination and stigma around COVID-19 among students’ teachers have to play an integral role during and after the pandemic. Religious misbelieve; disbelief and communal disharmony are major issues which may tarnish all the great efforts taken against the pandemic in India.  The teacher needs to be alert and make student alert about such misconceptions to develop themselves a healthy citizen. The fact is along with Covid19 immunization, we need to take “mind/thought immunization” program too.

 

Teacher must also emphasis that hard statistics reveal that approximately only 5 to 10 % of the tested people, report positive for Covid19. Further, about 80% of positive cases recover from the disease without any serious complications and only 2.8 % (in India) of closed cases are fatal (Half of these above 60 years of age). So far in India approximately 60000 people have died due to Covid19; many of them had co morbidity, but a nation of 140 cr. is held hostage to fear and anxiety. As said early, its impact will be particularly severe on infants and child who are not getting proper environment for growth and learning at crucial phase of their life. Thus, ( at the cost of repetition) if not managed properly, the effects of the corona virus pandemic will be “imprinted on the personality  of our children (and nation) for a very long time. How would COVID-19 shape young people's personalities – and into what? Young people's mind’s shape, and are shaped by, their life circumstances. Human being a Social Animal is born into this world ready to deal with basic problems – forming close relationships, maintaining status in groups, finding friends and many more activities based on group interaction. Situation of Covid19 is challenging all this and a few things (said above and below) need to be avoided and others need to be managed to minimize the social and psychological cost of pandemic.

Coming back to teacher’s role as educator, corona virus-related disruption has given time to rethink about the sector. Technology has stepped in and will continue to play a key role in educating future generations and the role of the educator is changing too. All of us must rethink how we educate, and question what we need to teach and what we are preparing our students for. Most students in educational institutions today are from Generation Z, a generation that has grown up in a truly globalized world. They are likely to be reflecting on their education as a result of a truly global pandemic, with many facing cancelled exams, sporting events and even graduation. This generation is defined by technology, where the terms FOBA (Fear of Being Alone) and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) express their expectation of instant communication and feedback (that includes from parents and educators) done through apps like Instant Messenger, Snapchat and WhatsApp and being amplified with the current remote learning. Thus “Modern learning cannot be confined to the classroom, and it is more important than ever that teacher empower themselves to continuously guide and nurture students during this difficult time,”  We will see a shift where schools will create a foundation of inclusive, flexible spaces that will enable students to learn beyond walls.” Students can be empowered to learn for themselves in flexible, often collaborative ways, both inside and outside classrooms at their own pace. Nonetheless, bricks-and-mortar schools will play a valuable role in the future. For instance, a school is a safe place for children to learn social skills while their parents are at work.

As said above the COVID-19 crisis has changed student’s world and global outlook. So, it may also teach us about how education needs to change to be able to better prepare our young learners for what the future might hold. These changes may include: 1. Educating citizens in an interconnected world. COVID-19 is a pandemic that illustrated how globally interconnected we are – there is no longer such a thing as isolated issues and actions. 2. The notion of an educator as the knowledge-holder who imparts wisdom to their pupils is no longer fit for the purpose of a 21st-century education. This may mean that the role of educators will need to move towards facilitating young people’s development as contributing members of society. 3. Teaching life skills needed for the future. In this ever-changing global environment, young people require resilience and adaptability – skills that are proving to be essential to navigate effectively through this pandemic.

To conclude, the 21st century is already the era of emerging pandemic of mental illnesses. Thus, psychological and social preparedness of this pandemic carries global importance. Teachers must appreciate the psychosocial morbidities of this pandemic and assess the burden, fatalities and associated consequences on students. To deal with new challenges posed by the Covid19, student must be encouraged to develop a strong emotional quotient to cope with the unprecedented situation. Student must be taught to develop a strong emotional quotient and the ability to weather ups and downs in life. Students must be encouraged to practice Yoga to improve their physical, mental and spiritual health improves concentration levels and inculcates discipline. Stigma and blame targeted at communities affected by the outbreak may hinder relationships among students, instigating further unrest. Teachers must feel that it is their duty to create a responsible class of citizens- discerning and humane- by encouraging the young to develop empathy.  Students should be trained to use Social media in good sense, to educate students on transmission dynamics, symptoms of disease, and time when exact medical consultations are needed. Thus, this year when student meets or start attending class in near future, teacher will have to cover extra mile to remove all misconception, fear and to instill confidence in students. Remember great teachers are also model learners … and that can include learning about new technology, which they can learn with the kids. “A teacher should be an expert in learning and demonstrate the habits of mind that require great learning. They should be a model on these things for their students.”  “The best innovation that inspires most young people is the teacher.”

In this regard Gyan Vigyan Sarita’s effort (through on line class room and e bulletin), to transform Teacher-Student relationship, (which is drifting fast on a commercial track), to गुरु-शिष्य tradition, professional in approach yet spiritual in essence is praise worthy and worth emulation and spreading.

Ideally Social Distancing should have been named or understood as Physical Distancing. Instead of Fear people should have been advised to adopt caution. And Lastly instead of Stigma, the disease should have evoked Empathy. The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly shown us how a “virus” can negatively impact our lives even in the 21st century and simultaneously made us realize that the greatest assets of mankind are health, peace, love, solidarity, ingenuity, and knowledge. Most importantly, it is our hope that for Generation Z, Alpha and the generations to come, these experiences of isolation and remote learning away from their peers, teachers and classrooms will serve as a cautious reminder of the importance of our human need for face-to-face social interaction.

 दो बीजों को किसान ने बोया | एक बीज जब भी जमीन से उपर निकलने कि कोशिश करता, बाहर कि धूप, हवा (और पानी) से घबराकर वापस जमीन में चला जाता, अन्ततः बीज को मुर्गी, जमीन कुरेद कर, खा गयी | मगर दुसरा बीज धूप, हवा (और पानी) को जानने के लिये और जमीन के उपर आ जाता और कुछ दिन (और वर्ष) बाद वृक्ष बन गया | Choice is ours, what type of seeds we wish to cultivate out of young mind. Considering all the above and keeping in mind that the utility of physical school is beyond completion of syllabus, needs of students and future of country, opening of schools must be considered a top priority.