The educational system has had to evolve into a model where remote learning is a priority owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. Governments have had to impose lockdowns and draw up regulations to curtail the virus’s spread. Now more than ever, it’s critical children feel safe and get the right guidance to cope with the changes and challenges of the pandemic. Educators can help steer students in the right direction. Here are five ways tutors can assist children with coping with the uncertainty, loss, and adjustments brought about by the pandemic.
Show That You Care
It’s critical you have a good rapport with your students at this time and also prove that you care. You can improve your relationship with them by performing routine check-ins and starting each lesson or with intermediate personal questions. You can build up conversations with inquiries such as “What surprises or challenges did you encounter over the week?” “What’s been a source of inspiration and joy to you?”.
You can build up your relationship with your students by being a good listener. Try to be there for them as much as possible, validating and normalizing their ordeals where appropriate. Many students find it challenging to focus on their studies or feel uncomfortable spending so much time in their home. You can help normalize students’ feelings in such scenarios.
Keep the Focus on Emotional Safety
Many top educators are doing away with the traditional grading system of using As and Bs during an assessment. Instead, they opt for the simplicity of the pass or fail approach. Employing the latter can help tamper academic pressure among students as their home or learning environment differs from one another. Some pupils might be responsible for their siblings, gone through a traumatic event, experiencing anxiety, and more.
As an educator, you must find ways to level the playing field and defuse possible avenues of stress where you can in your educational delivery. Irrespective of their home environment or background, the pandemic has changed your pupils’ lives. The focus here is to provide a safe environment for their emotions, an objective you can achieve with formative based assessments.
Distance learning can increase the learning disparity between students. Many tutors are opting for personalized teachings rather than synchronized ones. Though the latter offer a crucial benefit of improving social bonds, it’s challenging to create or achieve its requirements in an average home environment today. Consider a scenario where a pupil has to share a laptop with their siblings or parents who work from home. This situation can expose such students to stress and impair their learning experience.
Encourage Social Interaction
Fostering positive social interaction and relationships can help you cope and keep depression at bay during a virus outbreak. There’s a restriction on in-person communication and this can induce feelings of loneliness and anxiety in students, especially those who are extroverts. Naturally, these groups would seek social interactions on their own, with many people using social media apps such as Zoom, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and more to keep in touch with friends and family. But many members might not have much luck socializing on such platforms especially when most of their social groups are classmates.
You can promote social interaction among your students by hosting an all-inclusive class gathering online. These meetings could range from book club discussions to small-group projects. Such interactions can help foster and develop healthy social interactions. Also, it’s best to avoid pairing students randomly but based on your judgment of their compatibility. Such selection is ideal, as the goal here is to exercise their social skills while nullifying the chances of failure.
Advocate for Self-Care
Having a positive outlook during a pandemic is crucial to coping with one. So, you should advocate that your students indulge in self-care routines. Such practices include taking time off to relax and unwind after study sessions, getting the right amount of sleep (ie at least 7 hours), exercising, seeing a movie, and more.
You can also promote self-care and reduce stress levels among your pupils by avoiding overworking them with bulky assignments. A common question on many students’ lips is “How can I do my homework faster?”. Often, scholars in such scenarios have their parents or professionals help them out with their assignments. Employing this method, they can avoid stressful situations such as extensive study periods and late nights.
If you take the step of avoiding homework overloads, you also indirectly help reduce the stress load on parents and subsequently improve the performance of your pupils.
Promoting Empowerment
In a world where morale seems to be and anxiety is common, empowerment can help one get over these emotions easily and boost self-esteem. You can have your students indulge in self-projects to achieve this feat. Here’s how.
- Consider letting students take on a passion project of their choice.
- They can come up with topics or books to go over during lessons.
- You can organize an interactive class where students deliver lessons.
Helping others can also instill a sense of empowerment, and help to shift the focus from the pandemic. There are multiple opportunities avenues by which students can give back to the community, a scenario we see playing out as thousands of students participate in creating 3-D mask models and gowns for frontline medical workers across the county. You can have your students write encouraging letters to health centers, reach out in creative forms to classmates, or encourage them to work together on a project that promotes hope and joy to the community.
Final Thoughts
The Coronavirus has affected every home in the country, with students finding it challenging to adjust to the drastic change in their routine. As educators, you can help them cope with the pandemic by proving that you care and prioritize their emotional safety. You should find creative ways to empower your pupils and encourage the practice of self-care.
It’s also crucial that you have a positive attitude and maintain excellent mental health, as both are critical to uplifting your student’s spirits. There’s great hope for a brighter future, and together we’ll achieve it.