When My Son Began His Online Classes, I Learnt A Few Things About Him And School Too!

With schools conducting online classes, a mom wondered what kind of a student her son would be. Observing him in class, pleasantly surprised her.

Every one who knows me, has called me an ‘obsessed mom’ at least once . I agree, and to a certain extent, I am possessive. But, I also believe I know when and where to draw a line.

Now, I don’t know if it attributed to possessiveness, but I always wanted to see how my kids behave when I am not around. I would always secretly wish that I could see them in school, in their class. And I wanted to know how they interacted with their friends and teachers, how they handled difficult situations, and how socially responsible they are.

Due to these unprecedented times, we are in a lockdown right now. And as the only solution, schools have begun online classes. Lo behold! My wish has now come true. I can finally see how my child behaves in a class room, albeit a virtual one.

Now, I was very excited about the online class, more so than my son. We set everything up and we were ready for the class. My son ushered me out of his room just before the online class began. He said parents weren’t allowed in the classroom.

I was more excited about online classes than he was

I told him that since it was my own house, I could go where I please and besides, I would have to enter the room since it had to be cleaned. He simply shrugged his shoulders in exasperation. I had to try really hard to hide my smile. And I found so many reasons to barge into the room!

Believe me when I say nothing has changed from the time I went to school to the present day. There are kids who try to impress the teacher in every way by answering questions even before she asks them. Oh, how I used to hate them. Thank god, my son isn’t one of them.

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There are kids who are always complaining about others. “Ma’ammmm, Aditya is muting everyone always!” Though, I hate to say it, it’s almost always a girl who complains.

There are the backbenchers too, I know it’s an online class but you know what I mean. They only answer when a question is directed at them and the answers are always funny. Oh, I love this lot. Though unfortunately my son isn’t one of them either.

He is the guy who is neither the annoying nerd, nor the backbencher. He is just like me. Always treading the middle path. Now, whether that is good or not, will have to be written in a different blog.

Even in online classes, the students are the same

Though the teachers are the same as mine, my teachers did a little more teaching. Thank god for that, otherwise how would I have taught my kids? Nowadays, I believe, the actual teaching is always done at home.

I really am happy that I now know how my son behaves in his class. But I really don’t know how much these online classes really help. I know it’s the need of the hour. And I understand kids who are in the higher school need it but do we really need online classes for primary kids? Some schools have online classes for pre primary too.

Most parents feel that kids are occupied with online classes and it is good because they are anyway at home. Apart from online classes for their class subjects, some schools are also having online classes for physical education.

You open any website, there are so many online classes on offer, for everyone. The schools display it on their website that they are so tech-savvy, they can teach online and their students are not wasting their time at home.

But are online classes the only solution?

Schools are just trying to compete with each other, and finish the syllabus. And the parents are trying to convince themselves and the kids that the online classes are the only solution. God forbid, if things don’t get better soon, maybe we really have to depend on online teaching for quite sometime.

But for now, when we are forced to take a pause, I wish we did not think of ways to get around. I wish we really paused, sat down with our kids, spoke to them, assured them, and even apologised to them- for they are in this because of us.

They have shown how resilient they are, and it is up to us now. Let’s still not keep running behind classes, tests, and homework. We need to teach them something more.

If we don’t do it now, then we can never do it.

A version of this was first published here.

Picture credits: Unsplash

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