Never Stop Learning Because Life Will Never Stop Teaching Us Hard Lessons

By Ustaz John Garang Ayii Riak, Juba, South Sudan

Saturday, July 04, 2020 (PW) — The Covid-19 epidemic has closed down many public and private social institutions especially schools in almost all countries such as ECD, Primary, Secondary schools, tertiary institutes, and higher education institutions (HEIs), and training facilitators resorted to providing all sorts of training and teachings online to ensure that quality learning continues.

Therefore, people think that learning is being stopped and they will wait until they hear that the COVID-19 has disappeared and things are okay. Some countries like China had gained momentum by using online learning options while other countries are waiting the right time to re-open schools and other public and private social institutions, but the question is; “Is there a right time in the contemporary that we should wait to things?”

For me, the answer is absolutely NO, because these are the last days that were said in the Bible by Jesus Christ that, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, tribe against tribe, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (Matthew 24:7). He added that, “Lawlessness will be increased” (Matthew 24:12) and “many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another” (Matthew 24:10).

Apostle Paul also said that, “In the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, and disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, and slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, and swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Furthermore, as the Apostle Paul wrote that, “people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud”. (2 Timothy 3:1-4).  

Therefore, therefore is no right to wait should continue and the learning must not because the days are evils and many man-made and natural calamities are increasing day and night so let’s continue learning in circumstances. However, there challenges and opportunities associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in which one can analyze the challenges and grabs away opportunities of learning, as I always say that, having a problem is not a problem, but how you handle is the problem.

I don’t deny the fact that the COVID-19 is real. But again we can do something while we are battling with it through our mighty technology which can smooth the passage of traditional face-to-face learning to a virtual platform program, approachability to quality digital content is vital particularly at the time of the COVID-19, so that ensures that learning is not disrupted, and keeps in touch with his beloved learners through smartphone and video calls, and other social media platforms. 

The war against the COVID-19 does not need Generals to order the army or use of strong weapons to shoot it as people said it a few months ago that, we should the COVID-19 with mighty guns simply we have guns. But I blamed most are teachers and doctors who are the ones to direct and lead people on how to protect ourselves and how to facilitate learning during this time of COVID-19.

We, the teachers should design the online learning options and learning pages, blogs, and give them to the Ministry of education. They advise parents to follow the Education Ministry’s social media page and credible education portals and blogs for updates and useful content, we (teachers) should also remind all the learners to keep in constant contact with their teachers and peers through group chats and to complete their online homework and tasks on time and they should also collaborate with each other and share their e-learning and online resources.

Many varsities worldwide have shifted from face to face classesinto online to minimize the spread of the infection of COVID-19. To ensure limited interruption to the teaching and learning process, HEIs must make sure the distant methods are effective for all learners. But teachers who have never designed an online interaction before can start with virtual lectures to minimize worries or be given one-week refreshment training to adapt the online learning options.

I believe that the institutional IT section may have an institutional internet account that one can borrow for use. Most of these online applications can allow concurrent connections and screen sharing so that instructors to browse through their lecture slides as they would physically do in the classroom.

Teachers can share the meeting links from the apps with their learners in the varsity’s learning management system (LMS) pages together with the usage instructions on how and when to connect for the online lecture. The laptop camera and microphone are the best enough for these processes. Online learning should involve assessment works, talk to your learners. The move to online teaching especially, if it has not been done before, might be disturbing to some, adding that attendance can be taken through a screen short by recording the online lectures.

The assessment and evaluation submission time stamp and chat or forum logs can also be used as an attendance record for other online learning tasks. Sometimes, all these can even be printed out as handouts, and also when using chats or forums, learners should be told that their ‘attendance’ is being captured for future academic performance and records for the purpose of promotions to the next level. 

To access learner learning time, the instructor must identify ‘measurable tasks’ that learners have to do online forums. In addition, the time for learners to read journals, articles, videos, watch, go through lecture slides, and create content, write reflections, and answer assessments, can be appraised as well.With an ICT we can manage all challenges that are facing in learning and teaching process. 

The COVID-19 is a push factor for us to ensure that learning and assessment in the new millennium are carried out successfully through different and new ways, so we should adjust our selves and adapt the new ways of doing things and we should be rigid to a new challenges that emerging.

With a virtual sharing platform, it can provide digital learning content and corporations we can do the best out of this epidemic. Despite this crisis, learning cannot stop. Individuals today have to learn more than ever before to keep up with these rapid changes and global challenges. We need to believe that the challenges of COVID-19 should be managed without fears. We should never let anything bring us down in learning, we have to keep going. Learning is not only being restricted to the classroom.

But, it needs practice, flexibility, and creativity as a part of our daily routine and I am looking forward to seeing our country facilitating education amidst the COVID-19.  We can improve by taking small steps and these small steps will eventually lead to something greater rather than waiting idly for the situation. It is said that “We always need to grow more and more, get new ideas because old ways won’t open new doors”.

So we need to knock the new door to open it. So, we should never stop learning during the COVID-19; because life will never stop teaching us the  hardest lessons that check us thoroughly, so let’s continue learning despite challenges surrounding us in our environments.

The author, Ustaz John Garang Ayii Riak, is a holder of Master’s Degree in a ComparativeEducation from Zhejiang Normal University, China and a Bachelor’s Degree of Arts with Education from BugemaUniversity, Uganda. This article absolutely reflects his own opinion and not for the institution he works for. He is also an ardent writer on education contemporary issues. He can be reached at (johngayii2014@gmail.com)

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