Dear Editor,
I looked at News Room Guyana yesterday afternoon and saw the headline, `Some teachers say teaching online is challenging, almost impossible.’ Perhaps we should not be surprised by this – teaching online is a totally new challenge for all of us. None of us were prepared for this new and demanding role.
However, the experience at the School of Nations has been rather different. We have now purchased 33 Zoom accounts – not the free ones that cut you off after 40 minutes. We spent almost all of the Easter holidays training all our teachers on how to use this technology – I, for one, had never heard of Zoom before. We field-tested it before the Easter holidays and we now have all of our classes 100% online from 9 am to 3 pm every weekday – complete with art, music, and PE classes.
We do not pretend that this is ‘the’ solution to the unprecedented situation in which we have all been immersed, nor that it is a one size fits all system for all parents and children. We fully realize that many persons may not have good internet provision and others are still plagued with blackouts. But it is surely far, far more than a beginning.
This may also contradict that prominent item on the news today.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Brian O’Toole
Director
School of Nations
