Covid-19 has been a complete turnover point for me. Starting this blog, learning new things, deciding my goals, all of these took place this lockdown. How did I accomplish so many things in just these 5 months which I couldn’t have achieved in the 13 years of my life? Simply because I got time, I got time to introspect. Never in my life have I got so much free time, not even in vacations. My parents have always inspired me to try out new things. This approach has benefited me a lot, but at the same time, it has also prevented me from doing things that normal people do, like playing with my friends, going for sleepovers and stuff like that.
This lockdown, I had so much time, I couldn’t go out, all I could do to learn new things is learn from my family or the internet. As a student, I naturally tried to avoid the whole learning from my family part for the first month (after which, I started experiencing new fun things with them) and started with learning new things on the internet.
I came across new books and new hobbies. I even got time to do the things that have been on my to-do list for years now, I learnt to code! For the first couple of months after doing all this, our school started online school. Not the live zoom lectures one (they started that last month) but sending lecture videos to students and sending lecture notes. I opened up the first video with very low expectations (I thought that it wouldn’t teach me anything and just prove to be distractive), believing that it wouldn’t provide me with the knowledge I received in the classroom. I clicked on the play button. 10 seconds in and…….I absolutely fell in love with it. It was almost like a dream come true.
The knowledge I received from these video lectures was way more than that I could have received in a real classroom. I could pause the video repeat it, I could even skip a particular part if I had learnt it from elsewhere. If I had any doubt, right away, I could open up a new tab in my browser and I could watch a YouTube/Khan Academy video about that topic. If I still couldn’t figure it out, I could always shoot a message to my teachers. I didn’t need to panic if I missed something while making notes, I could just go back 5 seconds and repeat it.
It was almost as if I could do anything. And for the first time in my life, I actually started liking the process of learning. I didn’t feel dependent on anyone. I felt like…like I actually owned my education. I didn’t need to beg my friends for lecture notes. I didn’t need to study if I didn’t feel like it. It was like I was taking up information and processing it into knowledge as soon as I learnt something. I didn’t need to go home and revise to turn it into knowledge. I could just pause, think about it and whenever I felt that my perception of the topic was correct, I would again play it.
To be frank, I loved it. Online learning actually felt like my thing. In my book I mentioned that you need to find how you learn, you need to find what works for you, you don’t need to stick to how your teacher teaches. You don’t need to adapt your learning style to match your teachers teaching style. You can learn however you want. This was it…this was my way. For the first time in my life, I went to study without anybody telling me to. I could study when I was at my best, be it at 2 am in the night or even 2 pm. I felt special, unique, and I loved it. Those two months, when I learnt from those video lectures prepared by my teachers, were the best period of my whole learning journey, and will remain so.
Now, we have started live classes on Microsoft Teams, it isn’t how I learn. But it still is better than traditional schooling. If I have an out-of-syllabus doubt, I can just go to Google (by the way, I have a crush on Google now) and search up my doubts. IT IS ALMOST PERFECT. Almost because I would love it if the video lectures start again. But I am trying something right now, I won’t tell you what it is just now, but believe me, if it works for me, you will be the first to know.
Thanks for reading till the end everybody, this is it for today. If you liked my writing style or agree to me, considering rating this article down below. You can even comment if you want to share something or have a different opinion. I would love to discuss it and learn. Consider subscribing to get notified each time I post (that is each Sunday). I will see you in the next one, till then stay happy, stay safe. Peace.
Please comment here if you have any different opinions, or anything you want to share.
I agree, even I loved the video lectures. But I like traditional school better because I can talk to my friends and I can have fun with them.