COVER STORY
Learning in the Time of Corona: A Parent’s Perspective School administrators, teachers and the “new normal” BY AQSA KHAN had to become cognizant of their students’ different situations, with some pupils working more independently than others. This pandemic soon taught parents and teachers to be patient and understanding because there were so many variables at play, and students were crossing new terrain. Even kindergartners seemed to have so much more responsibility for their own learning.
A NEW EMPHASIS ON MENTAL WELL-BEING
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s 2020 began, nobody anticipated what our lives would look like in the coming months. Less than three months into the year, a sudden jolt was felt by all of us in the Northeast — our communities and towns were put on lockdown. The tragedies experienced by those who lost loved ones to Covid-19 are difficult to process and imagine, especially since they could not be near them during their last moments. The virus’ economic toll has left too many breadwinners jobless or working part-time and struggling to make ends meet. And we must not forget that as schools closed and extracurricular activities were suspended, students of all ages would now be attending online classes from their homes. But as online learning stretched into weeks and months, the question soon became not when they would return to school, but rather if it would be safe for them to go back even in the fall. Those first few days were very confusing — exactly what were we preparing for? Should school administrations and families
plan for something prolonged? Our school, Noor-Ul-Iman (NUI) in South Brunswick, N.J., quickly informed parents that the school was doing its best to find a way to ensure that their children’s schoolwork and learning would continue uninterrupted. The administration and staff met for half a day to plan a remote learning system using the now ubiquitous Zoom and Google Classroom technologies. Before closing its facilities a few days before the area public schools did — but without missing a beat — NUI’s staff and administration set up remote learning for all of its students — preschoolers to seniors. Even though I had the luxury of being at home during the day, I immediately thought of working families who relied on school as their childcare. How could they supervise their children and work on their own tasks simultaneously? Not only was this an unfair burden for many families, especially mothers, it ended up being an impossible feat that led many women to resign from their employment to give their children the supervision and care they needed. On the other side of their virtual education, teachers
24 ISLAMIC HORIZONS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
When remote learning first began, my first grader’s teacher focused on what was most important: her students’ mental well-being. Educators understood that a specific curriculum still had to be covered, despite the new social and emotional consequences, and many of them created activities during their sessions to make their students feel cared for and supported. Every day my son’s teacher opened the session with a remote circle time so the kids could share what they were doing at home and socialize with their peers. Staying positive, providing extra time for assignments and implementing other adaptations enabled teachers to help students of all ages learn that even when big changes happen, structure remains important and talking through it is helpful — and that to modify one’s goals is an act of reflection and purpose. Parents appreciated that many educators understood that while this pandemic would slow down their children’s learning, it was nevertheless the perfect opportunity to provide an important life lesson to keep them buoyed and feeling secure. This emphasis on student well-being, a priority for educators, was felt even more acutely by parents. Removing children’s ability to interact with their peers in close proximity left many with a gaping hole in place of their usual engaging learning environments. It became evident that our children needed new outlets to express themselves and to partake in safe social activities.
