sightseeing

The emergency situation that has been experienced in the world since the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic has put the health systems and the economy of many countries to the test. The challenges spread to other sectors of society, with such magnitude as had never occurred in our generation.

Within all this, the educational system was seriously affected, as it was one of the first to close to comply with social isolation measures. This caused the concern of all interested sectors, from parents and authorities to teachers and students. On the one hand, there was the difficulty of continuing with the teaching of the study plans and programs, on the other hand, there was the challenge of monitoring and evaluating the knowledge learned.

One of the proposed solutions was based on the use of information technologies and digital media, with classes online or even on open television. The effort of teachers and students to work with this modality is to be appreciated, trying to complete the programs in the best possible way.

However, it must be considered that access to online education was not uniform, since not all the population has the means to carry out these activities. According to INEGI data, in 2020 only 61% of Mexican households had internet access, and of these only 51% used it to support school activities. Even the level of mastery of such technologies in teachers from the various regions of the country is unknown.

All this could have given rise to a simulation of the educational process, in which each one tried to do their part. On the teachers’ side, it is possible that some opted for the easy way out of leaving an unrealistic amount of homework, with a superficial follow-up of the objectives achieved. On the student side, it is possible that many simply tried to cope with the situation, fulfilling a minimum of tasks and commitments.

In these circumstances, the shows of solidarity from Mexicans are always to be highlighted, as they tried to do something to alleviate the great inequalities that permeate our country, such as the case of the professor from Chiapas, who installed a device in his truck to carry a Wi-Fi signal. to the marginalized neighborhoods of their locality, and like that case there are others.

At the present time, when more than two years have passed, teachers and parents have worked hard to try to save the education of students. Furthermore, thanks in large part to vaccination campaigns, many schools have been reopened for a return to face-to-face classes. There is the reality of a society that did what it could to face the emergency.

Now, perhaps it is time to take the pulse of that reality, move on to data collection that helps us understand the state of education, know the effects of lived experiences, all of which should lead us to propose measures to recover what was lost.

In addition, it should be taken into account that said educational process was carried out in many cases with a social or family situation of vulnerability, high stress and volatility, aggravated in some cases by the level of poverty and inequality that characterizes our country. For worse, with educational institutions accustomed to face-to-face and traditional work.

Although all the initiatives proposed to carry out the educational process could have helped somewhat or a lot, it is possible that society is focusing more on the means than on the ends of education. It is assumed that the knowledge acquired at school should help us to understand and interpret reality, to seek solutions to the problems facing society. Well, the challenge is still here, among us, testing our ability as a society to survive in the best possible way.

Sometimes reality teaches more than school, especially in a crisis situation. During these years everyone was subjected to an extraordinary information load. It is possible that many people have heard about the difference between exponential or linear growth, which is a virus, or viral load, how you deal with a viral disease against a bacterial one. We now know that the soap acts on the outer layer of the virus; also what an artificial respirator is and how it can be built. Likewise, many other topics have been discussed in the media and networks such as: graphs, tables, social responsibility, cells, molecules, maps and geography, etc., etc.

During the first year of the pandemic, it seemed to me that society should appreciate that, thanks to this exposure of knowledge through non-traditional means, it was possible that various topics were learned in daily life. That same level of learning could be used to argue that the best way to assess that year in the primary and secondary grades was simply to give all students a passing grade. On the other hand, in the case of high school or high school youth, they could have been asked to investigate and elaborate on issues associated with COVID-19, based on the information they had, and with a review of those works, give them a rating.

Later, he proposed that when the next cycle began, or when the current one resumed, they should try to link the new topics with what was seen all these months in the media and networks. At the same time, it is very possible that solid information and fake-news are mixed up in all these media, but clarifying it should be the priority of the new cycle. In order to achieve the above, they should have worked with the professors, to update them with more solid foundations on these issues, for which scientists and academics from universities and research institutes should be invited to clarify the most complex issues.

However, now that classes are back, they are making the mistake of trying to pick up things as if nothing had happened. In fact, with the first reports on the mental health of students (see, for example: Process, no. 2362, pp. 28), it becomes clear that there are problems of mental growth of children and young people, who went from the childhood to adolescence physically, but not quite emotionally.

In the case of higher education, it was recommended that they try to resort to online teaching, according to the specialties of each career. However, given the little experience of our university system in the use of technologies and distance education, it was difficult to trust the effectiveness of these methods in the current context. Although most of the students were used to traditional methods and the teacher’s guide, the testimonies I have collected indicate that a part of the students was ready to fully enter distance education.

In that sense, it seemed to me that during this emergency it was neither possible nor advisable to try to reproduce the full content of a traditional course with other technology and media. Rather, it would seem to me that it is urgent to identify in the study plans those central and essential topics, on which the efforts of teachers and students should be concentrated. It is true that current knowledge is very broad, but there are central concepts in each field, which deserve to be presented in detail, to understand the laws that govern them. From what I have seen in the media and my own experience, no higher education institution proposed an adaptation of their study plans to the new situation, rather they tried to save the traditional plans with the available tools.

For example, in science and engineering careers, we have the concept of energy as one of those central themes, which helps us to know that every natural process spends a certain amount of energy and that energy cannot be obtained from nothing, like magic. . Knowing energy allows us to know how machines work, movement, electricity. Thanks to energy we can discover many tricks in miracle products and even disbelieve in the existence of ghosts. The curricula in the emergency had to emphasize topics like that or others relevant to other areas.

At various times in our country, education on some specific topics has been achieved by non-traditional means, through which people have managed to acquire basic knowledge in various fields, among them we can list: computer skills, automotive mechanics, nursing, construction , Languages. All these examples should not give a broader perspective of the educational process in society, to assess what is really learned at school and what is more a part of the socialization process of children and young people, so important for their development. This assessment would help us to give the exams their fair dimension, or even study them with the help of science itself, to find out if they are overvalued as the only means of knowing the level of knowledge of the students.

There are many tasks that we have to resume when the emergency has been completely overcome, or when it is under control, although it may not be possible to return to that past in which we all grew up. In my opinion, one of the most urgent tasks of the educational system is an exhaustive review of the study plans at all levels, to provide them with the greatest possible flexibility. These plans must include a component for the use of technologies, which, together with a humanistic education, make the student an agent of change and generator of solutions for the problems of our society.

In the case of basic and secondary education, it is vitally important to incorporate science teaching with new methodologies that make it attractive and interesting, so that society sees it as an important part of the culture of every citizen. A culture that allows us to decide on the value of healthy distance and hygiene measures, as a way to prevent the spread of diseases, or to accept the reliability of vaccines, as a measure that is helping us to be in better conditions to overcome the emergency that left so many lives and suffering in our lives.

Finally, given the difficult situation we are experiencing and continue to experience, I have always believed that it is highly recommended to raise awareness that tolerance, kindness, respect, patience, are values ​​and attitudes that should be even more precious and encouraged by our system. educational. We must emerge more human, as a way to make this critical situation more bearable, so that we can all fulfill our obligations, safeguard ourselves together with our families and thus be able to count that we survived the COVID-19 pandemic.