A panic-stricken call from a friend about her college proceeding to conduct their one-year diploma course digitally since July opened up the door of dread for the future. Indeed, this has not just been the case for undergraduates, like my friend, who looked forward to a postgraduate campus life. This has become a characteristic of the ‘new normal’ all across, with students stuck amidst unexpected times, with undesirable demands.
The adoption of ‘online education’ due to the pandemic to recreate a classroom digitally has received criticism from teachers, students, and academics. The disappointment with this shift emerges from multiple reasons. Firstly, the response of educational institutions to conduct lectures online has assumed that all of their students have a stable internet access, a laptop/phone and healthy families that allow them to attend lectures from their houses. This assumption is inconsiderate of caste, class, and digital divides in the country; it is exclusive and thus, is criticized as being discriminatory.
Second, the digitalization of public and private colleges has made it susceptible to invasion of privacy. Especially in the humanities and social sciences, as these are spaces where socio- political opinions are discussed, state surveillance, with its worrying arrests and assault on students, makes the digital space unsafe. It poses a threat to academic freedom in the classroom environment. Third, the issue of mental health of the students and teachers, which is ignored by institutions demanding submissions and continuing with a syllabus that remains disconnected from what is happening around in the world. Additionally, the shift to online education has been in the interest of private actors such as digital start-ups, prompting fear that this may result in neglecting the public education system. Finally, the online education system has been continually questioned for inherently robbing students of the ‘student experience’ which in itself is a form of life that not only involves exchanging ideas and dialogues with other students in a setting where each seeks to learn, but also a student-professor rapport.
All of these criticisms are both relevant and necessary; to me, they speak of an education system that is faltering. On the one hand, these are critiques of a ‘response’ to the pandemic but they all hold ground, slightly modified and to varying degrees in higher education even without a pandemic. It is not the case that educational spaces have been egalitarian, context sensitive, and safe. Do we then, really wish to fully ‘replicate’ our classrooms digitally? Is there anything that these exacerbated issues rising from the shift to online education teach us about our classrooms and how we plan to continue?
We are now provided with the space to re-imagine the way we structure our classrooms, the ways in which we learn and teach. To ask the question of the essence of education, its significance and what it fulfils in both, our individual lives and society, is to take a step back from the routine of online classes and syllabus. The sole purpose of a degree in order to become employable is in question during these times as a majority of people find themselves in precarious professional positions. Moving away from this understanding of the purpose of a degree reminds us that college is more than a space for consumption. It is an educational community and must encourage reflection. It must, in all ways, be life-affirming and help us live through these times. The way we go forward, then, specifically in higher education, could mean reflecting on how better we can humanize our current organization.
It could be through decentralizing the classroom and giving more agency to the students. It is of no doubt that each of us has been impacted in various ways due to the pandemic. If those experiences are to be of any value in the long term then we must reorganize the classroom and education should adapt, give more agency to learners and emphasize on context-based learning. COVID-19 relief work, adapting to the pandemic could be worked into the way we learn, both empowering those in various circumstances to be resilient and enabling a relationship between experience and theory.
Another important aspect of life that must reflect in the way we reorganize our classrooms is mental health and well-being. More often than not, students and teachers feel isolated when experiencing issues that impact their mental wellbeing, even more acutely during lockdown. The incongruence between college academics and the space of the household causes not just stress, but also impacts social life. Colleges should encourage and facilitate common interest groups that encourage collectivizing mental health as impacted by socio-political contexts and make it a priority. Additionally, reduction of lecture hours and enabling expression through various mediums and not just audio/writing, but by including expressive arts could benefit students psychologically and also give rise to interesting questions and ways of thinking about ‘form’ and ‘content.’
In essence, the change that the pandemic has brought to our education system is far-reaching but inadequate in addressing the various concerns that emerge. The exacerbation of pre-existing inequalities and issues brings to question the wish of going back to normal, questions the normal and provides a space for imagining education in the post-lockdown world. While I have reflected on the ways in which we can humanize our classrooms, all of these suggestions require us to relook what we think is the purpose of education. However, the view that employability is the purpose of education cannot be understood without the context of capitalism. Not only does education remain a significant area to rethink and reframe its purpose but also the context that it emerges from.
Shivani Chunekar
