"The lockdown is building new arteries within homes; families are rediscovering their bonds and connections; they are making renewed efforts to do things that they enjoy together as a family. Therefore, how about considering this challenge as an opportunity to shift focus from 'schooling only at schools' to 'School-Home collaboration for learning'," said Anita Karwal, Chairperson, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in her letter to school principals.
In the letter she has urged the school heads to reinvent education process, devise creative and engaging methods and set examples to follow for the education system. "We believe that this is the time to not just deal with the current emergency, but also build foundations of resilience to face such difficult events in the future," she has said.
She has shared thoughts and suggestions for school and non-school activities.
In her letter she has asked principals to tell the parents to involve their children in kitchen work. "The running of a kitchen is an immense learning resource," she says. "Various happening places in our homes, especially the kitchens, remain the most underrated and underused place for a child's cognitive, affective and psychomotor development. Kitchen is perhaps the best lab one has at home," says Ms Karwal.
Apart from academic activities like completion of course, conducting online classes, Ms Karwal has asked school principals to promote learning of culture, language, climate change and household chores.
She has suggested to inculcate hand-heart-head learning in students replacing the head centric rote learning. "Activate the triad of children, parents and teachers to work on problems that they see in their community, environment and geography," she has said in the letter.
To teachers she has asked to be mindful of physical and emotional needs of students while introducing online classes. "This is an opportunity to inculcate self-learning and researching habits amongst children, particularly those studying in classes 5 to 12. Instead of focusing only on one-way communication, utilize your online time with them to facilitate children to reflect and make presentations on studies/activities completed on their own," she has said.
She said an alternative academic calendar is being developed by NCERT for classes 1 to 12.
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