With each passing day, we are realizing our systems can’t handle the current pandemic. How can we improve schools during a pandemic? Everything has moved online. Telehealth, schools, colleges, meetings, work. Of course, there are jobs that you can’t do online and you have to be physically present. With rising COVID cases, another lockdown is imminent. How do we build fundamental skills for our children?
In all this chaos, if anyone is the most affected, it is the children. Schools during a pandemic are a mess. Our school system is more fragile than ever. The purpose of the education system is to educate children, but the focus of teachers remains to make sure kids comply with rules and regulations. They focus on how a kid will score in an exam.
I grew up in Maharashtra where education was nothing but a rat race. If you do well in your 10th or 12th standard, you will do well in college. Once I was in college, it was a rat race to get a job. Once I got the job, it was a rat race to climb the ladder. Life is a rat race. But I ramble.
From my personal experience, I have realized there are a few fundamental skills that everyone should learn and master. Even if you master one of these skills, you will do well in life. These fundamental skills are necessary to learn anything else in life. I will even say that if you don’t learn anything in your life but these fundamental skills, you will be fine.
Fundamental Skills
Everyone learns these fundamental skills, but nobody puts emphasis to master them. I can replace fundamental skills with foundational skills. So these fundamental skills are foundational skills for every human on the planet.
- Writing
- Reading
- Speaking
- Basic Math
Writing
Be able to write is the most important skill. This skill along with speaking will take you to places and make you money. Even if your goal is to not make money, writing is the only skill that can help you in many circumstances. Writing is about being able to convey your thoughts, ideas, experiences to other people. If they can read what you have written and can relate to you, they will find that valuable.
Writing is the easiest way to connect with strangers. With technology, it has become easier to publish books, write blogs, write tweets. People connect with each other easily with the written content. Writing blogs/tweets have made easier to document a journey.
As part of school curriculum, I will make writing the most compulsory subject. They should teach about writing as a craft, grammar.
Writing is all about making complex ideas simple.
Reading
Reading is important if one has to be a better writer. Reading is an entertainment, it’s a pleasure. Reading is also foundational to understand complex ideas and crystallize them by writing in your own words.
If you want to be a great writer, reading is the most important skill in your arsenal. From the moment homo sapiens have grown and transformed into the current form of humans, the most important invention has been the ability to read and write books. If we didn’t have books from the past, we wouldn’t have made the progress so far. Books are also the evidence of our progress.
Reading is a foundational skill because reading books is one thing, but understanding them is another. Reading with comprehension is a superpower. If you understand something, you can explain that to someone else. You can spread the knowledge.
Read what you love until you love to read – Naval
Speaking
As a child, the first skill we learn is to speak. Speaking is easy to learn, it’s ingrained in our natural abilities. Even the most introverted people speak when they are given the subject of their choice.
You learn speaking first by copying and then by learning new words, new sentences, new language. Speaking is the foundational way of transforming information from one person to another.
Speaking is also the medium to teach what you know. In schools, teachers communicate their ideas to students. The teacher should be good at communication. Person-to-person communication also forms relationships. A good speaker can convince people. If you want to influence people, be a good orator. Public speaking is a superpower. That’s why most politicians work on building this skill.
If you want to sell anything, you must learn to speak well.
Basic Math
Now, you will ask a question why did I include basic math as a foundational skill in all these skills.
Basic math is important so you can do day-to-day accounting. In our regular lives, we deal with people, we deal with merchants and consumers, we do the business of buying and selling. You will need to understand the accounting of your finances. So if you can basic math operations, you will be good. Basic math operations are not enough, you must understand compound interests and how the mortgage works. Those are all important aspects of basic maths.
Considering our current crisis, if your kid can learn these basic skills, she will be fine for life. History, Geography, Calculus can be learnt with time, but not the most important things. Let the kids find their own curiosity. Schools during a pandemic are hard, on teachers, on kids. If we can make kids love basic skills, that should be enough to handle this pandemic better.
Conclusion
Are there better ways to conduct schools during a pandemic? What do you think? Kids must socialize with the same age kids. They must be outside of the house at least some part of the day. It’s important for them to understand their surroundings. Where do we go from here? We must continue to improve education for children.