LETTERS: Early this year, I had only two school WhatsApp groups – one each for my 10- and 12-year-olds. Both groups were set as 'announcement' i.e. a one-way communication from the school to the parents. Come early April, the number of groups grew to a dozen.
Keeping up with instructions from their school while juggling office and home demands turned out to be a challenging task for me. Many times, I had chosen to sacrifice the lessons given by the childcare centre and kindergarten for my 3- and 6-year-olds, respectively, to prioritise lessons for the elder ones.
Talking to several working moms, they also expressed the same feelings. I am not alone in this battle of finding a new routine. A lot of us were overwhelmed with the abrupt changes and stressed out in catching up with the dynamic online scheduling of our younger children.
This is mostly because younger children are still developing their independent learning skill abilities. Without the skill, they have to be constantly reminded and this necessitates closer monitoring to ensure that learning can and will take place.
Having younger siblings does not help either. My 10- and 12-year-olds would easily be distracted by the sound of laughter of their younger siblings who watch television and play all day. They struggle to avoid the great temptation to join in the fun.
I also noticed that their concentration span had reduced further. That was also when my 10- and 12-year-olds would get an earful from me. My personal take: the Movement Control Order (MCO) has disrupted almost every household in Malaysia.
Prior to the MCO, the involvement of parents in their children's learning process came as an additional routine. The parents' involvement usually ranged from minimal and moderate, thanks to synchronous face-to-face learning at school during the daytime. Now that schools and kindergartens are closed, parents are forced to take up a more serious role in monitoring their younger children's learning activities.
Without the usual class timetables, parents have to stay alert to keep up with the asynchronous learning material and to not lose sight of the scheduled synchronous class sessions. We are notified of some class arrangements a day before. Seldom have there been last-minute arrangements.
Parents who miss the notification will miss their children's class sessions altogether. Considering the new norm situation, parents have been understanding and sympathise with teachers and vice versa. Everyone knows that this is a learning curve for everyone to adapt.
One other main challenge of online learning from home is the lack of online learning resources, whether it be internet access or technological devices. In cases where internet services are accessible, since it is also almost impossible to coordinate between multiple teachers, families with limited online equipment like laptops, computers or smartphones have to survive with what they have.
Synchronous online learning via videoconferencing is almost impossible when two different courses run during the same time slot. This is of course with the assumption that the parents have no scheduled online meetings at the given time.
Believe it or not, there is one group of learners who are the least affected by the MCO. They are the homeschoolers. Homeschooling parents are so used to taking up the teacher's role. Their involvement in their children's learning process has always been maximum. Being the most experienced asynchronous educators and learners, they thrive even more given that even more subscription-only online learning materials are made available for public consumption during the MCO.
Rumour has it, schools will only be reopened next year. While online learning has proven to be a challenging startup for many, in due time, things will settle down. Very soon, educators, learners, and parents will adapt with the demands of synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. We have all heard it. Whether we are in synch or not with the ideas, there is no returning to pre-Covid-19 learning – for us and our education system.
Amelia Wong Azman
Associate Professor at Kulliyyah of Engineering International Islamic University Malaysia
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times