The ‘New Normal’ in Early Education – Learning During the Pandemic It’s 8 a.m. somewhere in the world. The breakfast plates have been put away, the computer screens are on and studded with little images of children, with the teacher somewhere in the mix. For the next few hours, the children listen intently to the teacher imparting the day’s lessons. This has become the reality for children across the world – a ‘new normal’ – staying away from school to prevent possible infection, and balancing that with continuous education. The challenge with striking this balance is closer to home, right here in India. Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) for children between the ages of three and six is a critical need. Numerous studies have shown that 90% of a child’s brain development is driven by early experiences before they reach the age of 5, setting the pace for development right through adulthood. The absence of ECCE can have a lasting negative impact, with consequences such as early discontinuation of formal education. The challenge for uninterrupted early childhood care and education lies in accessibility, and this is a challenge across rural, semi-urban and urban areas. The new normal which we...
Children and Art – A Journey Towards Self-Expression Reminiscing about our days at school, one memory that rings clear is of a class we would never miss, come rain or shine. A class in which we put away notebooks and pens, and pulled out large white sheets of paper, paints and brushes, and coloured pencils. The ART class. A class where we would feel free… but to an extent. Perhaps the journey in the world of still life, of scenic views, gave rise to an exploration into our creativity, but that was okay as long as we coloured within the lines we drew, use the right colour for the right object, and did not make mistakes – lest our work be judged without affirmation. This hereditary hesitation had to be transformed somewhere. Our concentration on the holistic development of the child led to us organising a workshop for our facilitators on the subject of Art as a Medium of Instruction. But… before our facilitators could guide children through art, they had to be students themselves. This came with the expectation to unpack past learnings and start anew. We’ll tell you how this happened. One of the tasks assigned to our...