Indore: Greeting the school principal, having ownership of the school and feeling connected to the world around were the usual norms for students attending offline schools regularly before covid-19 outbreak.
Since the outbreak, the situation has reversed causing children to learn faster, but at the same time, causing them to feel more depressed, cranky, disorganised and most importantly losing basic values ingrained in education system in India.
Describing this with a simple experience, chairperson of Indore Sahodaya complex of CBSE schools UK Jha said, “A student visiting the school for administrative task walks casually, doesn’t worry about littering, has forgotten connections to the school and now looks at it as just a place of work.” He explained that this can be seen by the way the child greets the staff in school, body language and attitude.”
“It’s not something we would raise flags on immediately, but parents have been able to detect this behaviour and isolation resulting in mood swings, lack of value systems and overall de-attachment from most activities,” psychiatrist Dr Smita Agrawal said.
Such observations from various school heads are further substantiated by various researches conducted on students and their behaviour.
Two separate researches conducted by Newcomb AF and Bagwell CL; and Rubin KH, Chen X, Coplan R, Buskirk AA, and Wojslawowicz JC cite, “Younger children might have been especially challenged by adapting to a less structured life at home, as preschools could rely less on online teaching than schools and many parents were highly involved in restructuring their professional duties.”
It added that notably, older children showed more emotional problems than younger children. “It is possible that older children might have been more emotionally challenged by the absence of their friends, who play an important role in the emotional well-being and regulation in middle childhood,” the researchers said in their paper.
Further, another research conducted by Janitza S, Klipker K, and Hölling H quoted parents reporting more hyperactivity and conduct problems among children.
Some research shows that on average, students retain 25-60% more material when learning online compared to only 8-10% in a classroom.
This is mostly due to the students being able to learn faster online; e-learning requires 40-60% less time to learn than in a traditional classroom setting because students can learn at their own pace, going back and re-reading, skipping, or accelerating through concepts as they choose.
Signs of deteriorating values & mannerisms
· Greeting school authorities and guests casually and informally using words like ‘Aur yaar’
· Littering mindlessly
· Ignoring the need to wish people ‘good morning’ or ‘good night’
· Leaving unfinished tasks
· Raising voice at security personnel or other staff members
· Walking and dressing informally with no concern of queues or discipline
· Not feeling apologetic for crossing over someone or banging into someone
