A year ago, sometime in April, the little man started with online classes. What came as a shock to both J and me, became a routine. At 9.45am, Aryav would finish his breakfast and login to wait and see one of his favourite teachers and the bunch of nine kids who braved this pandemic like all other kids and attend classes for the first time on zoom.
I don’t like online classes. I want to go to school, was a sentence we heard too many times to be able to keep track off. Everything is open! Why is my school still closed? was a question we never found answer to, and still cannot.
From learning new concepts, to singing songs, to playing treasure hunt and hide and seek – they have done it all. From dictations to movie party to dancing – this online class became something so personal for Aryav, which even we couldn’t foresee.
So today, when it was officially the last day of kindergarten, and his teacher told him a final goodbye, my little human expressed emotions which even surprised me!
I don’t want the classes to end, was all I could comprehend from between the sob which lasted for at least 20minutes. While I tried to pacify him, I realised I was tearing up and so was the teacher who spent all her energy every single day, for one and a half hours, for the last one year in trying to to get these kids to learn and have fun.
That one hour became Aryav’s comfort and safe space away from all the madness around. That one hour way his childhood this year – meeting friends, laughing and singing but everything through a screen.
While I am grateful for my little man’s health and safety, I cannot help but flip through his academic year in my mind, which is crazily nothing but a collage of zoom screenshots!
| In just a few words.... | 