When Teams Meet

 

            It is perhaps invariably, and mostly to our unawareness, that the word ‘alternative’, while signifying another choice, almost always injects the premonition that it wouldn’t be as good as the option we are having to forego. Yet, we take it as the best way out, assuring ourselves that the difference between the two would be nullified by avoiding the prospect of availing neither of them. It is this sense of cashing in on the emergent alternative which sparks the initial satisfaction of using it, almost equalling that derived from the original option. However, it doesn’t take long for the delusion to dissolve. You soon realize, with a conciliatory sigh, that, for all its merits and attempted simulations, it’s an alternative at the end of the day, with all its faults and failings. By then, often there’s no opportunity either of reverting back or seeking a better option, as you slog through the ordeal.

 

             As a deadly pandemic descended on the country and we closed down our educational institutions with unfailing, almost frightening haste, it seemed as if the entire system had screeched to a grinding halt, staring at a dead end. Soon enough, alternatives began to crop up. They had already been there, but in an epiphanic fashion we sensed the need to resurrect them from the corners of ignorance, or oblivion. Thus came an entire panoply of platforms like Meet, Zoom, Teams, and so on. We came to be impressed by the range of features available, from the liberty to switch on audio and video at will to recording the class without much fuss. Confined to our homes, an unmistakable feeling of ease seeped in as what was until very recently a general perplexion at the overall disruption had now transformed into new-found amazement at the ability of a medium to not only replicate, to a certain degree, the exchange of a class but also to intrinsically knock down locational divides. A ritual which earlier had been to undertake the journey to the institution, assemble at a fixed place, attend the class and then trudge the way back home has now come to be merely keeping an eye an out for the class link to be sent by the C.R. and then swiftly entering and turning off the two sole windows of exchange, lest our perpetual failure to summon the formality of a physical class spills out. Even disinterest towards the lecture has a way out in the form of removing the earphones and venturing into any other task of our will. Undoubtedly, we all, at least for the initial honeymoon period, were on the same page regarding the seamless replication of physical classes through these platforms as well as the added sprinkling of unique benefits spicing it up. 

 

              Just as the morning mist settles down to vividly lay before us the surroundings, it didn’t take long for us to realize that the perfectability of online classes was a chimera that we all had tried to capture and convince ourselves of, but was not just elusive, but far from reality. It’s perhaps undeniable that repetitive activity does entail a monotony of sorts but the profound degree to which it gripped (and still grips) online education left one to wonder if it was an individual aberration or something that inheres in the very nature of the teaching interface, which then provides the ‘you’re not alone’ consolation. True, lectures do happen, students do interact, and thanks to features like digital whiteboard or sharing of the screen, illustrative help also comes in handy. Yet, even if it fails to nibble at our innate interest in the subject, this mode rapidly dwindles our requisite attachment towards the method of teaching and learning it. Important to acknowledge in this regard is the fact that physical classes not only involve direct, face-to-face interaction between the teacher and the students but also that between students during and in between classes, all in an environment where all can see and hear each other. While this is completely jettisoned in online mode, what adds to the woes is a tiring daily routine which, among other things, racks our brains, assails our eyes, and ultimately dehumanizes us to the extent of alienating us from the actual essence of learning and interacting. An increasing ennui descends, gradually evolving and expanding into a persisting aversion towards the entire modus operandi of education in the new normal.

 

              In the long run, you come to accept that these platforms are not alternatives, but a singular, but despairing alternative to the irreplaceable structure of physical classes with all their lingering and inherent shortcomings. From embracing a much-relished replacement to what had been the undisputed norm, we have indeed traversed a significant distance to living with a simulative carcass of a buried, but now desperately craved mode of learning. Online education may not be going away anytime soon, but whether our ongoing education is truly on line is a question which even the most ardent proponents of the same will hesitate to answer in the affirmative.