Human Connection over the Internet: My Experience of Virtual Teaching
By Richa Pandey
The year 2020 will always be remembered for the pandemic. It will be remembered for the distress, trauma, starvation, deaths, pain, and misery caused to millions of people across the globe. It will be remembered for the unemployment, the digital divide, and a finishing line far from sight. It will be remembered for living in fear with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel. But it will also be remembered for the numerous attempts made to restore faith in humanity.
The pandemic exposed the unequal world we were a part of, digital divide being one of the indicators of that inequity. As the issues of the learning crisis started emerging, numerous organizations jumped in to enter the digital learning market. It was believed that online learning would be the ‘new normal’. While several groups questioned the legitimacy of online learning on several accounts, NGOs worked towards finding solutions to bridge the digital divide. As a volunteer to the GyanVahak Program launched by Simple Education Foundation, a Delhi based NGO, I got an opportunity to interact with two siblings who live in Kundiya Village of Gularghati in the state of Uttarakhand. I engaged with Priti (13 years old) and Parvati (11 years old) for three months (September-November 2020) virtually (over voice calls). On average, I spent five hours every week talking to my ‘Gular girls’.
The girls were given two sets of workbooks every week – a magic workbook and a maths workbook – by the Pathshala team of the Simple Education Foundation. The magic workbook had learning experiences requiring children to read stories, think, reflect and respond to follow up questions; engage in exploration activities including conducting interviews, analysing data and drawing conclusions. The math workbook contained word problems based on the stories given in the magic workbook. The primary focus was on data analysis and interpretation and hence, the situation was explained in the form of data presented using pictograph. In this article, I am sharing my learnings from my first ever experience of online teaching.
Reading and comprehension
For the Gular girls, English is their third language, Hindi being second and Garhwali being the first one. The workbook was designed bilingually with stories written in both English and Hindi. To read a given story, we followed our ‘reading ritual’ that I learnt during the volunteer induction program conducted by the NGO. For instance, in one session, I asked the girls to look at all the pictures in the story and weave a story around those. They described each picture one by one.
The first picture had an old man sitting with a few bamboo baskets. I asked them to pay attention to the background. Priti described it as a mountainous region with snow falling. I asked to describe the trees, she said they are conical. The second picture showed a young person standing in front of tall buildings. I asked the girls to guess which place this could be. Priti guessed that it could be a city. The third picture had a person with a question mark above his head standing between two thought bubbles – one showing a village scenery and the other showing city life. The girls immediately said that the person is confused about where he should go. At this point, I asked them if they have faced such confusion and why, in their opinion, people move from villages to cities. They replied, ‘For better education and job’. I asked if they have seen people around them moving and they narrated the story of their neighbour who moved to Rishikesh with his family. The first fifteen minutes were spent on building up the session as they continued to describe the pictures one by one and I probed them to establish a connection between the different pictures. They did not understand at first. So, I asked them how the first two pictures were connected with each other to which they said that the first person might be the father of the second person. They were right. Once they had woven parts of the story by themselves, I invited them to read it.
Guided discussion
Parvati was a shy girl and Priti was the opposite of her. Consequently, I had to consciously give equal opportunity to both to participate. This meant that Priti was at times reminded to step back and Parvati was encouraged to take initiative. One of the happy moments was when Parvati comprehended the sentences with some help from me and her sister. Another was when due to lack of physical presence, I intuitively asked them to use hand gestures (for the new word ‘never’) and check with each other if they remembered the word and its meaning. It worked. Paraphrasing also helped as they could narrate the entire story in Hindi by themselves. Moving from comprehension to specific words and their meanings helps and this was a learning for me as well.
To utilize the time effectively, I asked one of the girls to read the story and the other to paraphrase. Since paraphrasing was taking time, I switched to guided discussion wherein I asked questions and they responded to all questions – both factual and reflection based – actively and confidently. Also, before the discussion, I asked them to identify the new words in the story and clarify their meanings by associating the unfamiliar words with corresponding words in paragraphs written in Hindi. They had to simply guess which one could be the possible translation. I found this exercise fun and useful for the remaining session.
Learning fractions
Teaching mathematical concepts virtually was indeed a challenge. Particularly in case of concepts like fractions or pie charts. To explain the concept of fractions, I asked them to take a rough page and divide it into four equal parts. Using this activity, I explained what is one fourth, one half and three fourth. Then, I asked them if they were eating dinner and there is one extra roti left, in how many ways can they divide it. They were able to explain and I was glad. The best part, however, was when I asked that if one extra roti is to be divided in all the members of the family, how much would each person get and the younger one instantly answered, ‘one-sixth’. There are adults around me who still say ‘adha adha bannt lo’ (literally, divide into half) while dividing something between four people! I shared this with them with a request to clarify (when someone makes such a statement) that adha is half and four people get one fourth each if something has to be shared equally.
To reinforce the conceptual understanding, I later shared a video explaining fractions with them over WhatsApp. Another interesting insight I got while explaining a pictograph. They had to represent 22 in the form of pictograph with the base as: 1 ♀=4. I asked them to write 22 as a sum of 4s and based on that, I explained how a pictograph can be made. I also shared an image via WhatsApp. Interestingly, the time spent on fractions proved useful as it also became clear that half of a person need not be left or right side, it can also be the upper or lower body – something that was not pointed to me when I was a child.
Social Science and the importance of context
The workbooks were designed with certain themes in mind, for example, livelihood, migration and resources. In one of the workbooks, the protagonist of the story was a young boy named Rakul who went to a nearby market and met people from different occupations. He mistreated the potter, cobbler and vegetable seller but talked politely to the chemist and ice cream vendor. At first glance, the story seems to be highlighting the bias people hold against some occupations. After reading the story, I asked the girls why Rakul behaved the way he did and none of them thought on the expected lines, yet the responses were interesting. For instance, they pointed out that he was mistreating people who asked for more money (bargaining possibility – opens up scope to discuss why certain occupations do not have such possibility or why do we not bargain in malls or say with doctors), he misbehaved when there was rush (why do doctors have clinics and code of conduct), he disrespected old people (moral question).
Interestingly, the children pointed to well-ingrained social bias when asked to do a follow-up activity in which they had to interview some people in their neighbourhood. When I asked the girls to do the livelihood interviews, they had a valid question, ‘Do we need to interview people only with a monthly salary, can we interview daily wage labourers?’ I had not thought of this.
Role-play
In one session, we had to discuss a fictional story about migration. The opening paragraph of the story described the situation of the protagonist who was a well-known artisan betrayed by the system (no minimum selling price) and forced to migrate to the city. Even though the story was written in Hindi as well, I felt that the concept required more explanation. Hence, we spent the next half an hour understanding the meaning of artisans and the concept of the minimum selling price. I asked them to tell me about some people who use their hands to make something and sell it for money. They named people who make winnowing machines from bamboo, earthen pots and the ones who do embroidery work on cloth. I told them that these are all artisans.
To explain the concept of Minimum Selling Price, I asked them to assume the role of a dress designer (for a doll). I asked them to list down the material they would need to design a set of clothes along with its estimated cost. I asked if they could make the clothes with just the material. They said no, physical, and mental labour is also required. I asked if that was all. After thinking for some time, one of them mentioned ‘time’. I was elated by the responses. Next, I asked them to calculate the cost incurred in making a dress for a doll. The elder one said Rs 10 for raw material and Rs 10 for time and effort. I confirmed if it is Rs 20 and they said yes. I asked them how they would want to sell the clothes – whether they wish to open a shop or sell it to a big shop owner (retailer) in town. The younger one immediately said, ‘We want our own shop.’ I asked them, ‘Are there any risks in that?’ They did not understand at first. I simplified it for them by asking how many people would come to their shop and how many can access the big shop in the town. They asked if I wanted to know the exact numbers. I laughed and said, just the comparison. They said that the big shop will have more people. Then, I told them artisans sell to shop owners simply because the shop owners have access to more customers.
After this, we continued the role-play wherein I assumed the role of the big shop owner and asked them to come to my shop and sell the clothes. I, as the big shop owner, asked them how much the clothes were for and they replied Rs 20. I reminded them if they do not want any profits. Immediately, they changed their price to Rs 30. Then, as the big shop owner, I started negotiating. I said to them, ‘I can get a better quality, machine-made product for Rs 25. Why should I buy from you?’ They had no counterargument so I asked them to think of how they could help themselves in this case or rather who could help them. The elder one said, ‘A machine’. I responded, ‘Yes. Machines can help but you are an artisan. And a handmade product has its own value.’ I explained how machines produce cheap products in bulk, but handicrafts and handmade products are exclusive. I asked again, ‘Who can help you?’ This time they said, ‘The government’. Then, I explained how the government can help artisans by fixing the minimum selling price. In sum, it was a wonderful experience and I wondered if the British Raj could also be briefly touched upon in this section.
Keeping the connection alive
Priti was sensitive to the needs of her sister and she encouraged her to take initiative. Her presence as a peer added value to the sessions. I was fortunate to work with them as a pair. Working with the siblings proved to be an advantage as it provided an opportunity for peer learning. Even though there were occasional disturbances in terms of background commotion or network error, there was a flexibility that we enjoyed in terms of timing and duration of the session. Our sessions used to last anywhere between 45 to 90 minutes depending on the requirement of the situation. Time was limited to do justice to the content. But it was still good enough to keep the connection of students with what they are learning going. I wonder if I was teaching them in their regular school, how much time would have been spent on managing various things in the classroom. While I detest the virtual mode of learning on various grounds, I feel this sort of one-to-one connection is effective and somewhat essential to sustain the interest of children in their learning. But this can only be complementary and not a substitute for the regular, in-person teaching-learning process.
On one occasion when I asked the girls about their experience with the program they shared, ‘We have learnt how to talk, how to conduct interviews and ask questions. We have gained knowledge about different topics and we feel happy.’ The elder one shared that one advantage of these virtual classes was that doubts could be easily solved over phone calls. I was glad to see that they are able to examine their situation, think about it, form an opinion and articulate the same. This experience was insightful for me as I too learnt about two children in a far-off place eager to learn and a team tirelessly working towards helping them learn. In the end, I was grateful to get an opportunity to be the ‘Dilli wali didi’ to the ‘Gular girls’.
AUTHOR
Richa Pandey is a former student of Education with focus on School Organisation, Leadership and Management from Azim Premji University, Bangalore. She has taught in several private schools in Delhi and is trained in the pedagogy of Maths and Economics as part of the BEd program from Delhi University. Her areas of interest include alternative schooling, curriculum development, social-emotional learning and systemic change.
Featured photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash
