Lockdown Diaries Nominee#22- Learning at home during lockdown: My parents and Teachers

We all know that because of this recent coronavirus outbreak we all have to stay at home. This means we cannot attend school, which means that perhaps we need to find another way of continuing our classes, tuitions, various activities, etc. We perhaps have to learn everything now from the internet, our books and parents.

After many days our school came up with an idea of having classes online. We attended classes through google meet, zoom for intune, etc. We sat with our laptops, mobiles, tablets and other devices to attend our classes. Our teachers also used similar devices to communicate to us. We had much fun attending our virtual classes. We learnt the joy of being able to talk with our friends, interact, do projects and study together after many weeks. We learnt to give exams online using google forms. We faced the problems of getting frequently disconnected, a frozen screen, microphone and video not working, network issues etc. But these problems didn’t bother us much, we got the better of them.

The idea of having online class was indeed very good. Our new class teachers were excellent guiders. If we never met our new teachers, we could have lost this whole lockdown brooding in our houses. Our virtual classes were really helpful. Not only did I learn so many subjects, I also learnt many things about art and craft. We learnt how to make leaflets, posters and advertisements from our English teacher. We learnt to make natural fertilizers to care for plants from our Chemistry teacher. We really enjoyed our classes, leaving all the negativity and sadness and bringing out our enthusiasm and excitement to learn.

Half of the world, as we know, uses the internet. During this lockdown, we taught ourselves to not use the internet. My parents helped my learning through books and being cut-off physically with the outside world helped us understand the world and ourselves better. With my father’s help, I did various experiments on chemistry and physics and looked through a microscope and saw how different and unique the world was when you zoomed into it. My mother bought me an aquarium during this lockdown. This helped me learn more about fish by just watching them move and eat. With my parents’ help, I explored many new topics: Mariana Trench, the deepest point on the earth, Fungi and their billion-year history, Tesla & Edison’s rivalry over electricity, Madame Curie and her contribution in understanding radioactivity, doing paper chromatography at home, doing experiments with chemical to understand the types of reaction (my parents bought me a chemistry set complete with chemical, lab equipment, and instructions). I even learnt a new style of art and I even started doing oil painting and acrylic painting on shirts.

I also made various types of scented soaps and scented candles which taught me how these products were made. I even learnt how to make a popular street food of Kolkata: “Puchka”!
I enjoyed learning a variety of things at home during this lockdown. Learning through digital classroom mode in this lockdown was very beneficial and helpful as well as fun too. I also got to do a lot of new things off-line during this lockdown than I was at school. This was because I had lot of spare time. Sometimes, I have a wicked thought: what if the lockdown never ends so that I can explore more enthralling and exciting things by myself!

ReachIvy.com organized an online blog/vlog competition to provide people the unique opportunity to share their lockdown stories using their creativity. The competition met with a fantastic response from participants across 4 continents, and our jury has handpicked the Top 50 entries from them for the Popular Choice Award 2020!

The above entry has been submitted by Annika Basu from India. She is a 12-year-old student of Banaras Hindu University. Kudos to Annika for this beautiful piece!

Show your support and help Jaya win the contest by liking this blog post on all ReachIvy.com’s social media platforms!