The lost school culture after Covid-19

All those who used to attend school before 2020 can relate to many things. Covid-19 was a major disruptor that entirely changed the routine and productivity of human life. When I was doing my matriculation in a government school, we used to attend a daily strict exercise and prayer routine during the early hours of school. These were wonderful routines for children to understand and accept that health through exercise is a fundamental right of the human body. Our teachers were strict about conducting sit-and-stand exercises and other activities to activate muscles at school.

Similarly, it was a beautiful tradition where we used to attend assembly, where feelings of solidarity, mutuality and bonding could be observed. Assembly used to teach many lessons, from character building to prayers and a healthy sense of nationalism, where the anthem was the main thing that connected us with our nationality.

All these things were systematically wiped out from our schools after Covid-19 because it introduced a new mindset of minimal interaction. Even after six years of Covid-19, we are still hesitant to restart all those activities for our children, who are becoming obese, irritable and anxious. Nowadays, our children have limited desires centred on digital ownership and food consumption.

Sports, prayers, mutual activities and gatherings – where children learn about risk-taking behaviour, social performance and a new orientation of self – have disappeared over the last six years. Schools are not only meant for the academic growth of children, which is associated with the manifest function of schools, but they are also supposed to perform latent functions, which are more important than active functions in modern schooling. In the latent functions, schools are supposed to strategise about the development of emotional intelligence and stable emotional functioning through the understanding of self and others. For example, in the future, loneliness will be a more complex emerging issue than even economic or social issues. Loneliness will become a major disruptor of the self, where the performance, understanding and psychology of an individual will be compromised. When an individual gets harmed, the entire society suffers through interconnected issues like performance deficit, social passivity and emotional crisis. It is the responsibility of schools to prepare coming generations of children on how to navigate loneliness and emotional crisis. To live with oneself in times of bewilderment and social problems is a futuristic skill to be taught through schooling.

Confidence is an important thing to teach our children for future survival. Self-doubt is a basic thing that all humans adhere to. It is rooted in evolutionary psychology. When our primitive ancestors used to go for hunting and gathering activities, they were always thinking about how they would hunt. Would they be able to hunt today? Were they capable enough to hunt? All these questions were supposed to arise due to self-doubt. Likewise, our children think about whether they can come to the stage and speak in front of people or what if they fail a speech test. All self-doubts are fundamental parts of the human psyche, but it is the responsibility of schools to teach the transition from self-doubt to self-confidence through different techniques, like understanding what real uncertainty is and what constructed doubt is. Teaching and schooling can help create social skills where the coming generation will be more confident rather than doubtful, uncertain, socially awkward and self-passive. Passionate confidence must be a part of the curriculum through life skills and futuristic learning.

We need to rethink our school activities for a better and healthier adulthood for the current generation of children in schools.