The Fun They Had!

Some 14 years ago  when i taught Class 9th in NVS , the very first lesson of the newly adopted ncert text book 'Beehive' - 'The Fun They Had' really set the class in a discussion mood.  There were varied views on the story.  The class became so noisy and at the same time lively because it gave the young minds some food for thought. Not that i was complaining of the noisy mode my class had gone into, i was rather enjoying,  still it was a bit difficult to digest and envision the point made in the story.

OMG, I and my ramblings.... forgot that not everybody knows the story.  So let me get you through the story in brief.  

The story is set in 2157 , Margie and Tommy are the two main characters, Tommy being elder to Margie by 2 years. The excitement began when Tommy found a real book in the attic of his house - a book , the pages of which had turned yellow(as it was a very old book).  They found it weird that the words remained still on the pages and they agreed such things simply became useless once read.  They talked about how their tele-books had the capacity to store millions of books and how the words on the screen moved. Margie asked what the book was about and was disappointed to know it was about School. She found it distasteful that somebody could write about something as boring as a school. But Tommy told her that it was not the same school as theirs, rather it was a building where all the children from the neighbourhood went to study. While discussing about the old styled schools they started wondering how enjoyable it would have been to go with fellow children to the building called school, studying the same books and then playing together while going back home. They compared it with their robotic teacher who gave them solitary lessons in a confined room in their homes, asked for homework to be put into a slot and mercilessly gave them test after test. Margie is surprised to know that the teachers in olden days were human beings.  She wants to read more about this interesting building but at that moment her mother asks her to go into her school room as her robotic teacher had been repaired and was ready with the lesson.

Now, this story which was futuristic at the time it was written has just become the new normal for us.  In-fact I would say we have progressed much further technologically as the new e-books not only have verbal content, but also pictures, animation, videos and what not. And with apps to create a virtual classroom we have gone a lot ahead than the writer - Issac Asimov could even imagine . Also, we have been pushed to use these tele / virtual resources to carry on with our learning in the wake of  Covid spread.  

Comparing the two scenarios - one of the story and other of our lives at present (especially teachers & students) I found that even after being in a better situation than what was presented in the story there are some elements which are similar.   

Although most of us are making use of video calling apps (which are coming up like mushrooms in rains)  we all are missing that hustle bustle of the staff-room, that noise spread in the corridors during lunch break, those cups of tea in the school canteen, that rush to complete those urgent works which rain upon us so frequently and unexpectedly that it seems a void has been created in life working from home. 

The students too are feeling the pressure of online classes, classwork & homework have lost their meaning since every kind of work is to be done at home only, the occasional jokes in the class made at the cost of classmates or teachers are being missed badly. The lame excuses which saved the day for many of them have been forgotten perhaps. The lunch boxes are stashed away in some corner of the kitchen. Screen time has increased exponentially and parents are ironically coaxing their kids to be ready with their phones before the classes start.  

In- spite of the numerous benefits of technological classrooms under the present circumstances, the pace of learning is not as good as it used to be in the traditional classroom (you may differ from me). Teachers are using technology like never before (learning new things even if they hate technology), PPTs, videos, audios and virtual class apps have become the indispensable oxygen required for our classrooms to survive, still the result is not comparable to the traditional approach of classroom.  

Analysing the reason for this I found that we teachers were using technology in schools also, we were handling many more tasks than we are probably doing now, even then we were happy amidst the noise, the chaos, the urgencies of school work.... the same can be said for students (they definitely don't look happy on screen in Google Meet classrooms) .... despite all that what made learning fun was not those fancy projectors projecting some fancy slides on the screen but the essential human touch - the unsaid and unseen bonding between the teacher and the students.  Learning was quick and easy not because of technology alone.... but because of the much needed human touch which reflects even when a teacher's words are not dripping with sugar.

We are  face to face with students through video calling apps, however their faces are not as cheerful, and I think the reason is that probably human touch doesn't feel as good and as real in these virtual classes  because the technological screen comes in between !!

And for all of us now, we can only reminisce The Fun We Had!

Jyoti Sharma