While we are still wavering amidst a
pandemic that broke out a couple of years ago, I hear no-one asking the right
questions. So I might as well do it myself.
Do we intend to continue pretending that
distance learning is equivalent to face to face learning or will it ultimately
dawn on us that education is all about interaction and physical presence?
Are we going to turn children into
miserable obese creatures sitting in front of a screen and counting down to the
very last minute of their Maths session?
Are we to isolate and confine them to
their –not always so comfortable -- homes and teach them social skills from a
distance? And where will play and fun go? What use will their communication
skills be in their electronic cages?
Are we putting across contradictory
messages about caring for the environment and protecting the beauties of nature
when we are actually reducing their lives to a metaworld of everything?
Are children and teenagers going to be
intimidated and emotionally blackmailed into shouldering the deaths of their
grandparents and perhaps parents when it is the failures of adults and the
so-called experts who should be held accountable?
Will we go on plaguing them with “facts”
which have kept changing at a pace that even Russian roulette would envy? How
much longer will we sit back and hear “experts” banging on about the dramatic
increase in mental illnesses in the near future among children as well as adults
for that matter?
Most important of all, how much longer
will we force children and teenagers bursting with energy to wear masks made
out of all kinds of materials under the delusion – or maybe with malicious
intent – that we are doing anything else but asphyxiating them, smothering
their voices and criminally suppressing their freedom of speech? I won’t even
go into seeing their smiles light up their eyes again and the flame of life
return to their expressionless faces?
We are all teachers. Shall we bend over
our young pupils and heal their wounds gently reintroducing them to the life we
left behind? Shall we regain control of our lives?
