Education thanks to technology and effort

A big applause for our teachers

March 21, 2020 Arnold Hagens Corona virus, Economics 0

Published in El Pais, 21 March 2020.

This week I have been extremely surprised by how quickly schools have adapted to online home

education. Sunday night the Dutch government decided that all schools should be closed for three weeks due to the coronavirus outbreak and on Wednesday the schools announced that classes would start online as of Thursday. The teachers deserve to be congratulated for this effort. In just three days they have created an online system based on advancement applications. The instructions are sent every day through a good communication system (email) including YouTube links they created daily so that the children can study from home every day. At the end of the afternoon, assignments must be sent by the school platform. Thanks to the technology, creativity and big effort of the teachers, children will not be delayed in their education.

Our days are now more or less like this: We wake up. We have breakfast together and then my children watch the daily video on YouTube where their teachers explain the subject of this day (very short) and give the tasks for the children to practice the rest of the morning. My youngest son had a dictation on YouTube and some addition and multiplication sheets in his school material today. The oldest had to watch this morning’s news and answer questions online so that the teacher could check. In addition, he had tasks to practice his spelling. If they have any questions, they can write their question at any time in the system and their teachers will answer. At 14:00 each day they receive something like a small exam of the day that they must do quickly so that their teachers can see if they have learned everything well. After finishing, they must take a photo and send it to the platform for review.

I believe that although coronavirus has stopped a lot of our social life, this is a time to be creative and innovative. Human beings are capable of many things in times of crisis to not stop our development. Technology, imagination and effort can help a lot.