Come what may, the pandemic has made a compelling case for teaching online. As I stand at the threshold of another new semester, I am excited to hone skills I have learnt as well as to continue experimenting with the possibilities presented by the online medium.
Mentoring that happens in the classroom is not enough for someone who is a passionate teacher. Teaching does not begin and end at the doorstep of the classroom, though unfortunately that is how many professors complete the task.
The official enthusiasm for the online mode which derives from the obvious possibilities of extensive reach it offers must take into account that online education cannot be simply old wine in a new bottle. The new medium requires new modalities.
We need to remember that the online mode was never designed as a permanent solution. It is not okay to normalize online mode, and our experiences of teaching during the lockdown should invite us to think about the limitation of online as a mode to teach.
It is evident that the continuation of online teaching that was initially viewed as short-term measure beyond a year or perhaps more for some, is leading to higher levels of fatigue despite greater familiarity and ease of using the mode. While most teachers feel that they are now better than before in dealing with pauses, viewing only their own faces, dealing with students’ indifference and ever-changing technological tools, they also feel even more ‘irritated’, ‘demotivated’ and are ‘losing stream’.
This new series of articles on Confluence examines how online education in India evolved during the coronavirus pandemic.
I consider the mentor-mentee relationship as something special; something that is based on trust and rooted in the former ensuring the professional growth of the latter, expecting nothing in return.
A harsh and unacknowledged truth drives scientific research in our country – the suffering mental health of research scholars and the discouragement of their intellectual development. Research scholars are often treated as the human resource component of the ‘research machinery’, fueling publications for their supervisors.
Since mentoring is a social enterprise, requiring very personal investments of time and effort, and with serious expectation (by the mentor) of a response (from the mentee, and vice versa), this goes outside the ambit of a codified behaviour that can be put into simple rules such as the mentor should do this this and this, the mentee should do this and this, and then all will be well.
The process of honing the capabilities of research scholars necessitates a balance between sensitivity to cultural background and a professional distance; this is not always an easy balance to obtain.
