HUFFING AND PUFFING!
"For me this is delightful news! I'm glad about the news. As far as I am concerned, as a teacher of physics it was very hard to show my experiments on-line. When a person himself or herself does something they learn better this information.After two and a half months teaching on-line I had already found this teaching boring," stated a Russian teacher of physics called Tamara. Oksana Chebotareva, a Russian English teacher said that preparing for on-line lessons demanded a tremendous amount of work compared to face to face teaching. "Anything can go wrong during an on-line lesson. The face of a student freezes on your screen or the sound can go, or the computer can break down. But I am still teaching students at the institute on-line." She does not share the enthusiasm of a colleague called Anna who sees some advantages in using new material with the students and in enthralled by the novel options available.
On the 18th of January all school students were allowed to return to Russian schools after a long pause where for almost half a year children from the 6th to 11th grade were studying at home on-line. Mayor of Moscow Sergi Sobyanin claims that the measures to contain the spread of Covid 19 have brought positive results. He stated - 'In Moscow we have applied all the means to cut the illness in all directions ... The growth of the illness is down by 30% compared to what it was before New Year and the number of hospital admissions has fallen by 18%'. Such figures, as well as claims made by officials are again being questioned by many critics.
But why was this decision taken so swiftly and lightly? The government claims that since the battle against Covid 19 is being won, it is safer in schools so children can go back. However, the safety of many school teachers is largely overlooked. Some figures claim that as many as 20% of school teachers fell ill. Pavel Suvorov, a headmaster of Internet school number two, in Moscow, stated that, 'Last October to November the organizing of the face to face teaching process was very difficult because 70% of school teachers were ill. It is possible that with on-line teaching this problem can be resolved but of course no monitor or technical measures can replace living contact'. Some people think that the main decision to send children to school was the emergence of grass-root groups of parents who launched a massive campaign involving petitions, meetings and rallies calling for the return of offline education. They had bitterly complained of the psychological toll of pupils, poor quality education and parents and teachers who were at wit's end. In deed, just over 80 % of pupils complained of disturbed sleep, feeling irritable and depressed. The government does not wish to lose the support of more and more people.
How do pupils feel about returning to school? According to a Russian Literature teacher Irina Lukyanova, one survey found 40% of pupils are happy to return to school, 30% are against returning to school and the remaining 30% feel 'it is all the same'. When I confronted the parents of some of my pupils and asked how they felt about this their faces began beaming and broke into a relieved smile. "I'm very glad. It has been very tiring for everyone," stated one mother of two called Kareni. Her 13-year-old daughter did not seem so happy. The pupils I have been teaching are still tired and it will take a lot of time before they get used to a new regime at school again.
Some Russians believe that the decision to return pupils to school was rash. They should have waited until everyone in schools were vaccinated. It seems more like a political decision. Although school students are returning to school, should any pupil in their class fall ill, it means that the whole class is immediately sent home to be quarantined! And in contrast to schools, students at institutes of Further Education are still not returning. A rumor was floating about that the authorities made this decision because they were afraid that students will return, meet and more effectively organize protests against the government. But this seems based on speculation, and conjecture rather than confirmed facts. But the government are certainly anxious about potential unrest among students. The government recently sent messages warning that any pupils and students attending unsanctioned protest meetings would be expelled! But such messages indicate a complete misunderstanding of the basic psychology of children and youth. A proverb goes 'Forbidden fruit is more tempting.' When older people tell the young not to do something in a tactless way, it more often has the opposite effect. In this case the warnings more likely encouraged rather than dampened down protest! In other words, threatening has actually incited the youth. What is certain is that when the authorities asked children to return to school they did not have in mind children taking down school wall portraits of Putin and replacing them with the photos of recently imprisoned Navalny. Due to the fact that at past protest demonstrations a large number of school children seemed conspicuous, the authorities have grown frightened of school children! Returning back to school is one thing but going to unsanctioned protests is something else.
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