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For many of you who seriously imagined what schooling would look like when the building finally reopens and the leaders of this country determine that it is safe for children and adults to resume their lives beyond their own. houses?
To the thousands of parents, educators and school principals who wondered if things would just pick up, relatively unchanged at least from where they left off before the crisis or if there would be big changes in the way Ghanaians see and do school, I sincerely hope and pray for these, especially for the younger students who largely don’t have time to do what research suggests is good for them: learning through structured play and the end of standardization of tests.
The COVID-19 crisis has traumatized one of the most dysfunctional pillars of children’s education. Last year, in March, Education Secretary Betsy De Vos of the Trump administration made a deeply pious decision to suspend the federal requirement for standardized mass testing of children by announcing, “Neither students and teachers do not need to focus on high-stakes testing during these difficult times. “Other countries, including England and Australia, have replicated this divine decision. However, these decisions must be critically reviewed in Ghana and continuously consider them.
Like countless other parents, we now have an increase in homework – schooling our young children even after President Nana Akufo Addo announced the resumption of schools for fear of COVID-19. We need to build our schools on what pediatric society calls “the ideal educational and developmental environment for children”: play, in all its forms.
The proof is clear. A wide range of research indicates that intellectual and physical play confers a host of cognitive, social, emotional, and health benefits. Play is the language of learning for children, and pediatricians know it has the power to supercharge more conventional and equally necessary forms of academic education.
With the instructions of the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo and for fear of the spread of COVID-19, many schools have abandoned active sport periods in their curriculum, however, schools must restructure all subjects to be taught using the ‘POWER OF PLAY language. The worst-case scenario would be for schools to say, “We missed many months of academic subjects and tests, so we’re going to squeeze everything into the shortest amount of time and catch up.”
This kind of thinking is a terrible idea, because it would only add to the stress that children are already under and undermine their capacity for productive learning.
In these times of uncertainty, pain and fear, gambling can play an important role in healing.
During this crisis, parents must resist the temptation to exaggerate the pressure exerted on their children by excessive “distance learning at home”, often on screen, in order to “not fall behind”.
In this weird and tragic chapter in world history, children need parental care and love, comfort, safety, non-digital play, healthy routines, songs, books. , basic art supplies and, where possible, physical activity, much more than they need academic pressure. , graded homework and excessive screen time.
In this health emergency, government leaders around the world are urgently seeking advice from medical and scientific experts. They should do the same in education. When the covid-19 pandemic passes and the world opens up again, we should rethink our schools using the best expert evidence, just as we do in response to the global health pandemic.
We should give our children schools that follow doctor’s orders, giving them lots of physical activity and games to boost learning and improve health and happiness.
The mission of early childhood education can no longer be the generation of standardized test data, but learning fueled by the physical, mental and emotional health and well-being of every child and every teacher. Schools should be every child’s favorite place. It is time we did it that way.
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