Learning Is Boundless….

Dikashma Shree 

(Author is a student associated in IOMS for last 1-1/2 years and continuing with it. Currently she is in class XIth.)


Experience of learning in online classes: Due to the pandemic, we have been pushed into a condition where everything we normally did was confined into mobiles and laptops. And so our schools transformed into WhatsApp groups, classes into multiple virtual meeting platforms viz. Google meets, Microsoft teams, Zoom etc., black-boards into shared-screens, homework into PDFs & Google classroom, experiments & practical into observing videos on YouTube and pen-paper tests in Google formats. Online learning has indeed connected many students and teachers around the country and a world which makes us access everything with our fingertips. As they say "When things seem to get easier, is when it gets ironic". For students who lack financial, geographical, economical facilities that many have, were unable to cope up with these drastic changes, they had to (and still are) suffer(ing) from internet connectivity issues which made them afraid of missing out parts of their learnings and being anxious & depressed when their online classes gets disconnected in between the lectures. And for those students who were not able to attend the online classes at all the situation is most devastating. Not only classes many of them were not even able to get books.

Experience made learning in offline classes: These classes have always been the most practical and effective means to learn under those circumstances where social-distancing was the means of our safe health; a primary concern of our parents and government. The face-to-face, chalk-talk, hand and body gestures are the well-known and understandable methods of all times and generations. But, one thing that school in offline/online mode classes didn't much focus on is the encouraging of curiousness of the students. As children it's something very innate to raise questions on things we observe or learn newly. Whereas schools are designed to work in a particular or rigid systematic order as per syllabus. It leaves are pretty much un answered curiosities in schools. At times, we as students feel inferior and hesitate to raise questions like Why? How? and What if? Thus, students are compelled to just follow what's given and slowly suppress their curiosity leading to a “book-worm situation". Such a situation also segregates students into bright and rest to be not so. Finally, it creates disinterested students who do not understand what's being taught.

Interactive Online Mentoring Sessions (IOMS): It's said that “sometimes the negative things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us". IOMS is one of those things that happened to us in this situation. It is an effort of providing we students learning experiences which gives us the essence of deep conceptual clarity of topics in our subjects. As it's an out-of-the-box approach which unbounds any rigid system. It encourages us to observe and connect ourselves to the things around us, our surrounding with the topics that we learn. It makes us belong to what we really are and what we want. The urge to raise questions is encouraged and embraced. It nurtures the curiosity. The doubts are discussed in the sessions. It does not put an end to a particular method to evolve the solution, main focus is not the solution but analysis of problem and ability to solve the problems. No question is considered to be silly, and no answer is considered absurd. These questions and answers are considered by our mentors to judge our restlessness at learning of the concepts. Students are encouraged to interact with each other as a means of collective growth, the motto of IOMS. It not only focuses on academics but the most important in life human-values. It also encourages us to present our creativity in the form of Academic Understanding through submission on various topics that are taught; Performing Art viz. classical or folk singing, dancing and craft making videos; Visual Art viz. drawing, painting, craft etc. and Literary Art viz. essay, poem, story. These creative works are brought out in monthly e –bulletin of the Gyan Vigyan Sarita. In October 2020 it has been upgraded into Web-Bulletin.

As a student, I have benefit of association with IOMS initiative and personally go through these experiences since April’2020. This journey has faced many ups and downs just like a sine wave, it makes me feel determined to handle things with a calm and collective mind, to work harder by pushing one’s own limits, defeating excuses and conquering out of the comfort zone, because Learning is Boundless….

 

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