Lessons in times of desolation ..... What is being tested today is our resilience, our ability to remain calm, to keep up our flagging spirits and to be fruitfully occupied.... The prolonged ‘lockdown’ has shown us what it is like to have our freedom, which we have taken for granted, curtailed

Pedestrians maintaining social distance walk on a road during the nationwide lockdown, imposed in wake of the coronavirus pandemic, in New Delhi, Tuesday, April 21, 2020. PTI

Devi Kar, TT, 22.04.20: In human history, people have had to cope with all kinds of large-scale disasters. But I do not think we were ready for such an unprecedented crisis. It crept upon us in the form of a microscopic creature in a sinister crown. Nobody knew that this minuscule creature would bring the world to its knees.

It was in late December that we first heard of the coronavirus outbreak in distant Wuhan, and although there were no ominous signs then, we felt uneasy enough to call off the scheduled visit from our partner school in Chuxiang, China. As things began to get serious, it was interesting to see people’s reactions. Some blamed ‘media hype’ and laughed it off disdainfully. “Why do people get so ‘hyper’ over a sore throat and a cough!” they exclaimed. Others began washing their hands surreptitiously. Then real anxiety started building up, especially among parents of students. One parent called to say that he wanted the school’s permission for his elder daughter to stay at home after the year-end examinations were over. His younger daughter, who was in nursery and had no exams, had not been attending school. I told him that under the circumstances, the school would certainly give the girls leave of absence, but what guarantee was there that the virus would wait for the exams to end to visit us? Other parents requested us to close the school as they were ‘extremely worried’; some made their little girls wear masks to school. Soon enough, the state government order for closing schools till March 31 came in; subsequently the date was extended to April 15. We were puzzled at the piecemeal measures as thousands of students appearing for their board exams continued to be exposed to the virus threat; after all, there were the contingents of teachers invigilating, supervising or marking papers at the various examination and evaluation centres. Thankfully, in a few days, the order for a complete shutdown of all schools and the suspension of board exams came in.

A few of us in administration decided to meet in school one last time. We needed to supervise winding-up procedures, plan virtual meetings and classes and attend to appropriate communication channels with parents and students. In all this flurry, some parents turned up in school. One came to enquire about his child’s report card, another about her daughter’s ‘perfect attendance’ certificate and a third to find out whether there was any chance of her niece getting admission in the next session. We did not know whether to be filled with admiration or exasperation that there existed people who did not allow even a life-threatening pandemic to distract them from their single-mindedness. We also marvelled at business people who were fascinatingly adept at sniffing out an opportunity in every new situation. Our inboxes were steadily flooded with offers such as the ‘spatial disinfection’ of the school, the setting up of digital learning hubs, online training for teachers to conduct virtual classes, sensitization programmes to teach and learn ‘corona-etiquette’. The Guardian reported that the president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, known more for his business acumen than his leadership skills, was offering ‘large sums of money’ to Germany to get ‘exclusive access’ to the corona vaccine which was expected to emerge from a German laboratory.

Amid the sudden demand for hand-sanitizers and masks, a colleague remarked that parlours were minting money from a new ‘corona’ hairdo. I hope it was just a bad joke. Joking, in adverse times, is a stress-busting strategy, so now that we are in the thick of the pandemic, ‘corona jokes’ abound in the cyberworld, as do comforting messages, poems, songs, anecdotes and pictures.

Multiple theories about the origin and spread of the virus are also in circulation. One theory holds that Indians have special ‘immunity genes’ and that we need not worry as our scorching summer heat will certainly kill the virus. There are conspiracy theories, one of which throws dark hints about leaks in one of the laboratories of some powerful countries — labs that hold deadly viruses to be unleashed in a future bio-war. Another theory refers to the game plan of the ‘one-percenters’ who wish to control the world. Such theories make compelling reading or listening, and help distract us for a while. But most of us know that it is more practical to listen to epidemiologists and doctors rather than theorists at the moment. As for the imminent economic crash, let policymakers attend to the problem. It is the poets, philosophers, artists and musicians who will heal our souls.

Thoughts of a brave new world occur at times like this. Just as we witness selfishness, we also see acts of kindness. We have definitely realized that it is possible to do without too many material things. Many of us have learnt to reflect. From the perspective of school education, I do hope that we will have learnt that a single examination does not determine a person’s future, and that the powers that be will think of scrapping stressful mass examinations altogether and devise effective, meaningful ways of assessing students.

The prolonged ‘lockdown’ has shown us what it is like to have our freedom, which we have taken for granted, curtailed. What is being tested today is our resilience, our ability to remain calm, to keep up our flagging spirits and to be fruitfully occupied in these nerve-wracking times. As teachers, our most important task is to see that our young continue to learn, hope and envisage a bright future.