School-home collaboration for learning: CBSE to Principals

Recently CBSE Chairperson addressed a letter to school heads urging them to reinvent the education and learning process, make the methods creative and engaging.

PM Modi had announced a nation-wide lockdown on 24^th March 2020. Students were mass promoted by many of their schools. The rising cases every day makes the situation uncertain.

But it is important for the students to continue with learning and studying. The schools will have to catch up for the lost time which might stress out students later on and cause too much pressure on them. So while they’re at home, the schools can collaborate with the parents and help the students out. The lockdown phase has anyway has led to families to be together again. From watching Ramayana to helping out with household chores and eating together.

This opportunity can be used to shift the focus from ‘schooling from schools’ to ‘school-home collaboration for learning’.

Anita Karwal, Chairperson of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), in her letter has mentioned that this is the time to build foundations of resilience to face difficulties in the future. Schools can prepare questionnaires for parents of every class, which will help the parents to understand their child’s unique abilities and interests. The outcome of learning that a child is expected to achieve will be discussed with the parents.

Learning by doing will have a new definition for these generation kids. Instead of cramming theories, children can now experiment. Parents can be guided to have discussions with their children on diverse topics. This time can be taken as a learning experience by the parents too as they can now let their child teach them about technology. And these simple activities can be turned into projects with differing complexities for every grade.

The kitchen is considered to be the most experimental place in a house. A child’s cognitive, affective and psychomotor can be developed by experimenting around in the kitchen. Parents are expected to ask their children to help them in the kitchen as cooking is one of the most important surviving skills. They will learn classification, organization, quantities, proportion, time management, etc.

Parents should involve children to keep their homes clean and design their duties. This way they will learn space management, self-management, self-discipline too. This will inspire them to take up the responsibility to manage their classrooms, labs, and libraries.

Since the students are at home and not running from school to tuitions to sports, this time can be utilized in inculcating in them our cultural ethos and our language. People are resorting to ‘Namastey’ instead of handshakes in the wake of coronavirus. Since the country is in lockdown its difficult to find junk foods now and home-cooked food is now the only option. To keep us busy and positive exercises and yoga is being advised to everyone worldwide. This will help the children know and appreciate their culture. Students can be encouraged to do projects on Indian Art, language and culture as a part of their learning process.

Technology can be used judiciously to work both with parents and students. Online classes can be synced with the normal timetable that was followed in school. Facilitate children to study and make presentations in the form of films shot by them on their electronic devices and can be graded.

Make optimum utilization of social media platforms using the internet like WhatsApp, Facebook group for daily guidance. Ensure that students also follow their NCERT books to study.

Teachers have also been advised to be mindful of the physical and emotional needs of students while introducing online classes.