From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Jun 16: he Vice Chancellor (VC) of CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Rev Fr (Dr) V M Abraham has called upon the faculty of the University to develop and practice mindfulness to enable sufficient opportunities to all students to connect with each other, share their thoughts and confidently face the challenges of the post-Covid situation to excel in studies and life.
Addressing the faculty of the University to mark the commencement of the new academic year 2021-22 on Wednesday, Fr Abraham pointed out that learning during the uncertainties and anxious moments of the pandemic is fraught with umpteen challenges and is a time for educators to step back from a heavily charged curriculum ending with high-stakes examinations and be mindful of the entire ecosystem of learning.
Considering the interests of all stakeholders, especially students, teachers, family and community, he said the entire world is forced to consider the future in the post-lockdown, post-pandemic situation and felt going back to the old way of ‘business as usual’ may not work and it was necessary to think of new ideas and imperatives. More investment in education and student wellness is necessary to ensure that learning is happening not just through test scores and output but by being more closely connected to the psychological and emotional realities of our learners.
The present emphasis on online learning is not just remote learning but it is learning during a pandemic. “Anxiety, uncertainty, fear and isolation have become more prevalent. Let us check in with our students to make sure that they are coping well, allow students opportunities to connect with one another in chats or video conferences during remote lessons. Let us teachers spend time away from syllabus coverage to check-in with every student, practice mindfulness, give students opportunities to connect with each other, share their thoughts and feel confident in doing so. Let us be mentors to our students not just facilitators,” he said.
Need for Digitising Instruction
Fr Abraham took note of the hard reality of many of the students, who are located remotely have been left behind because of lack of access to appropriate bandwidth or devices while others have been able to accelerate their digital learning through sophisticated software, access to high performing devices and highly trained teachers.
This digital divide has been intensified by the crisis and will leave gaps in the learning of many students. It is, therefore, necessary to pay special attention to digitize instruction effectively to ensure that learners in disadvantaged areas are given the access to technology that has become essential for learning today.
The world of education has not caught up with industries such as media, telecommunications and consumer financial services. The surge of digital technology that took place in the early 1990s affected classroom practice at various speeds depending on the context, but only started to take a strong presence in the form of massive online learning and school-run virtual learning environments some 30 years later. Now it is here to stay, he said.
Never Too Late
“As we try to navigate our new reality, it could benefit us all to make time on a consistent basis to reconnect with ourselves and focus on the current moment. Let’s take time to release our thoughts and clear our minds so that we can be more attentive to the present, think more clearly, and not only be healthy for ourselves but for others as well. Let us aim for the path of wisdom,” he said “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second-best time is now. It’s never too late,” quoting a Chinese proverb.
The Vice Chancellor said the need of the hour for a more balanced, sustainable world is to interweave ethical questions on the consequences of our actions into all of our assessments to stimulate deep reflection and mentioned that students need to be prepared for a world that will need innovative thinking, strong people skills and higher-order thinking. "It may be that this is what the future of education needs for a post-Covid generation, which looks to an ever more complex future worldwide," he said.
Fr Abraham said, “The Covid-19 crisis threw institutions into a lockdown and forcibly disrupted teaching, learning and assessment protocols. This was not a case of institutions and examination boards taking their own time to adapt to the needs of the new situation, it was a violent breaking off from normal, requiring quick response and strong decision-making.”
On the pandemic’s impact on people, Fr Abraham said it contributed to a global mental health crisis, including anxiety, depression, panic attacks, posttraumatic stress symptoms, psychosis, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder and suicidal tendencies. These effects are present acutely due to fear of contamination or losing loved ones, effects of quarantine/isolation, withdrawal of community and social services and may continue long after the pandemic is over, due to bereavement, unemployment or financial losses.
The suitability of mindfulness, its skills and mechanisms as an approach to the prevention and management of mental health issues, as well as to the promotion of well-being and building the foundations of adaptability and flexibility in dealing with the long-term uncertainty and profound changes to the social, economic, political and educational systems must be considered to prepare for the future, he said.
“The schools and department leadership along with the department of psychology must support the CHRIST learning community by helping to create mindfulness groups and activities, open forums for honest conversations on mindfulness and design mindfulness interventions to enhance the efficacy of its practice and help our faculty members understand how mindful they are by administering Mindfulness Questionnaires, Scales and Assessments,” he said calling upon the faculty to include elements of mindfulness relevant to respective domains in the curriculum, syllabus and course plan.
“Closing the relevance gap between what students are taught and what they need to know in the future can be achieved when educators consider whether content is lifeworthy and lifeready. Teaching students with the goal of promoting ‘big understanding’ leads to deep insights into how the world works, how to take action, how to be ethical and how to apply knowledge in varied circumstances,” he said. “This uncertain time, demands that we seriously practice mindfulness to make our lives optimally productive.”
“When we press students to think about what the real issues behind a problem are or how things would be different if not for an assumption, we make, we can ignite their passion. Teaching students about different ways of knowing, ways of reasoning within a discipline and metacognitive skills are often neglected because of the pressure to cover content,” he said calling for trimming syllabi, covering only exemplary, resonant and accessible ideas or cases within a discipline to inspire curiosity in learners, which can occur in part by asking penetrating questions.