Education in Times of Turmoil

6:55 AM: My phone buzzes loudly with the sound of my alarm which has been snoozed innumerable times. I stumble out of bed, woken up by the cacophony, haphazardly put on my white shirt – misbuttoned of course – and get ready to gawk at my laptop screen for the next few hours: a treat for my aching eyes. I try to absorb the sea of information I’m flooded with by my teachers but alas, my WiFi network doesn’t seem to want me to receive an education. 

Since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, oh how I detest that phrase, life has been anything but normal and almost every morning has passed in the manner described above. We pedantically wipe things clean every few hours, hoping to rid them of any germs they may have had and hope with all our might that we don’t get infected. As for me, the only thing that has been wiped clean during the course of this pandemic is my brain of all knowledge, however little it may have been. 

Our teachers are trying their best to make sure our minds don’t go numb but are we reciprocating their efforts with the same fervor? Maybe not, considering how we magically seem to get disconnected when asked a question, however, students can’t be blamed entirely since between low network bandwidths and muddled voices, there’s only so much one can comprehend over a zoom call. Given how we can’t help with the current situation, unless any of you know how to make a vaccine, we have no choice but to accept things as they are and put in more time and effort into studying if we want to have any chance at a future. And yes, I am aware of how I sound like a nagging parent. 

 This pandemic has indubitably taken a toll on our education. Even though academic scores have gone up, by the grace of online exams and students’ flimsy sense of rectitude, academic understanding has taken a blow. I, myself, can admit that I was a far better student before online classes came along. But whining won’t get us anywhere, we need to buck up and get used to this “new normal”. I’ve had ten years of proper schooling and for that, I consider myself fortunate. It is unclear whether me and the students in my batch will get to attend physical school once more before we graduate and that thought fills my heart with deep sorrow. Had I known that life would take such a turn in 2020, I would’ve laughed a little harder, hugged a little tighter and definitely taken less “sick days” in 2019. Forgive the melodrama. Sooner or later, we will return to the world we’ve known all our lives. I take special comfort in knowing that this too, shall pass and you should too.

– Lubna Asif