A return to physical classrooms for all

Dr Errol Benjamin -
Dr Errol Benjamin -

THE EDITOR: Reading two letters to the editor in a daily last week on the subject of children returning to the physical classroom, one repeated in another daily of Monday, I am reminded of how often in the recent past I have written on the same subject, acknowledging then that even as online education seemed a necessary alternative to schooling with all its inherent covid19 dangers, a way had to be found to return the children to the physical classroom to balance the academic with the school socialisation process.

To restrict children to the academics of online without the interaction that comes in a physical school environment is a damaging impediment to students’ total development, the net effect being a generation of cognitively/psychologically impaired adults with a severely diminished capacity to take the country forward.

I went further to offer suggestions about how schooling during the pandemic could be organised with a network of health officials, ambulances and covid19 treatment centres attached to schools per district, reduced schooling time, in the first instance to three half-day sessions per week involving co-ordination with parents, and of course implementation of all the covid19 protocols, both inside and outside the classroom, inter alia.

Of course it was naive of me to think there would be a response from the policymakers. But now that there is a distinct possibility that living with covid19 must become a way of life, the two letters referred to above have become especially relevant, with virtually no mincing of words as to the negative impact of online teaching and learning and the need to return to the physical classroom.

The first by Dr Tonya Abraham-Ali, captioned “Online education failing schoolchildren,” makes an impassioned appeal to “get the children back to where they belong: in school.” It adds “how difficult it is to engage children on a screen after more than 600 days” and that “the Government must act before we lose a generation of children to failed education.”

The second by Nigel Seenathsingh, entitled “Harmful effects of more screen time,” repeats similar sentiments as above, but goes into great detail about the “negative effects” of full online classes and the closure of schools, ranging from the physical to the mental, from the health factor to the psychological, and having the reverse effect, ironically, of contributing to cognitive impairment instead of development.

The stark reality is that unless our children, without exception, are back in the classroom right now, in ten-20 years we as a country will be saddled with a group of young adults cognitively and developmentally impaired, severely diminished in their capacity to take the nation forward for the future. Much like a sapling hidden under a bushel in the dark, trying to face the sunlight of the day and becoming stunted, gnarled and twisted, eventually to wilt, collapse and die.

Do our politicians and their affiliates foresee this tragedy or do they care at all? The return to the classroom in February is partial. It should be – it must be – for all children!

Then too there is the ever present threat of omicron hanging like a pall of death over us and we are well aware of how easily policymakers can return to the one size fits all of blanketing the whole system as a matter of convenience, instead of detailing a workable approach to a manageable return to the classroom.

DR ERROL N BENJAMIN

via e-mail

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"A return to physical classrooms for all"

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