I am writing to you on behalf of many concerned parents of students from many classes regarding certain issues that we think that the school authorities should address while conducting online classes during this COVID 19 pandemic.
We are all going through unprecedented times the likes of which the world has not seen before in 100 years. This has put enormous strain on almost everybody, most notably on students in lower classes.
We regret to tell you that the way SLS is conducting classes in the name of imparting education to students is not helping the students at all, instead, it is creating a more chaotic, pressure cooker like situation for students and parents alike. We are sure that teachers are also feeling the pain.
We understand that the school is trying it’s best to impart education during such difficult times, but please consider what the students are going through. Every day they are subjected to 4 classes, starting at 7 30 am that continues to 11: 30 am for 5 days a week. So, kids are being subjected to almost 4 hours of screen time every day for a week. This equates to 80 hours of screen time every month. Is this necessary? Have you thought about what effect this will have on their eyes, brain, etc. that are still in the development stage. Ir-repairable damage will occur to these children as any medical doctor will agree, because of the long exposure to screens daily.
Why not do classes on alternate days and leave the rest for students to study on their own. This has been successfully implemented in other schools in Kolkata and elsewhere in the country so that the screen time for kids is reduced. Please have some faith in students and parents, and we are sure they will do well.
Quite a few online classes and homework are redundant.
E.g., in the computer class, a certain teacher reads straight from the book as if she is dictating a storybook to students. Is attending such a class beneficial for any student? The teacher is only interested in reading from the book, she does not explain anything useful in the online class.
The new Maths teacher teaches theory to kids and spends perhaps half the time in the class doing any actual maths exercise. What is the use of such a class where only 2 to 3 maths problems are done in 40 minutes?
The PT teacher has asked students to draw pictures of yoga poses. Yoga is supposed to be done physically to get any benefit. How is drawing yoga pictures for homework helping students? Please ensure that teachers do not overburden students and also their parents with redundant work that is not going to help them in any meaningful way.
In addition to 4 hours of classes every day, students are also expected to do a ton of homework just like normal times. Have you considered the stress that they are going through in handling 4 hours of classes and homework after that regularly? These are not normal times and setting high expectations for students and homework like normal times is absurd.
Last Sunday( July 5th, 2020), parents got a notice that students need to bring their homework exercise books to school on the very next day. So, in the middle of a pandemic, where COVID 19 cases are increasing by more than 20, 000 cases a day in India, you are expecting students and parents to come in physically and deposit homework copies in the school premises by giving them a 24-hour notice?
Have you thought about the consequences of your actions? Will you take responsibility if any such student or parent gets infected with COVID 19 virus because of your reckless and frankly dangerous action? In a time when social distancing is the only way to stop the spread of this deadly disease, you are forcing students and parents to make a dangerous decision to congregate in school for the sake of depositing their homework.
To add to the absurdity of the whole situation, now a new notice has come(July 9th, 2020) out, that students need to collect their homework copies again thus jeopardizing their life twice in 4 days? Have teachers been able to go through the homework copies and do their duty in 4 days? What kind of reckless decision is this that is putting human lives at risk so that some trivial homework for kids is completed?
We hope that moving forward, SLS authorities will take a hard look at how the whole online class, homework assignment situation is going to make sure that everyone is comfortable in doing the class and no extra stress is added to kids and parents on top of the whole stressful situation that the whole world is going through.
We hope that this email serves as a way to do some introspection and raise some red flags in the way classes are being conducted now. As parents, we can definitely tell you that students are not being helped by the way things are going and we hope you can take some meaningful action to correct the situation.
We are all in this together and we hope that SLS authorities will take corrective action such that students can benefit and carry on meaningfully during these challenging times.
"Concerned parents of many students of SLS school"