EDITORIAL: Give our school children emotional support

IN less than two weeks, Barbadian children will be returning to the classroom. This is after months of online learning and the loss of critical socialisation and learning time. This development will ease the burden on parents and guardians who were forced to find creative ways to motivate and engage their children’s minds in the new learning cycle.

But the long-term psychological impact of the pandemic on children and education is still unknown. As term three starts, the island’s children will need strong emotional support as they re-enter an environment of face-to-face learning.

In this new learning environment, students will still have to cope with the problems of the past and maintain more rules and protocols like social distancing. Educators will have to explore new models of learning, which include split scheduling and blended learning. Children were using a new model of learning during the lockdown and it will become a permanent part of their education in the future.

Lockdown caused stress in children learning from home

At the start of the pandemic and even today, children both young and mature struggled with inadequate access to technology and Internet connectivity. The digital divide was a topic of discussion for parents, educators, and policymakers and some children did get new devices for school.

But this situation was complicated by the frustration of parents, teachers, and students as they tried to adapt to the “new normal”. Many local teachers complained about the lack of concentration of their students during online classes.

Need for counselling and therapy at all schools

Children going back to school will have mixed emotions and they will need help with their mental health. They will be able to see their friends and teachers and enjoy the open environment of the school. But they will also need to deal with the anxiety and stress of wearing a mask, social distancing, and sanitising their hands regularly. Similarly, teachers who may or may not be vaccinated will have to deal with the interaction with children, knowing that COVID-19 is out there. The Government has issued several guidelines for schools to alleviate the initial uncertainties.

But the first week of school, at both primary and secondary schools, should focus on providing counselling and therapy for children, teachers and staff before immersing everyone into the school curriculum. This can take the form of counsellors and also activities such as meditation, breathing exercises, and creating spaces of tranquility, peace, and mindfulness.

It will be important, as one international school has found, to create a recovery curriculum. This will include five principles: safety, calm, self and collective efficacy, social connectedness and hope. The world we live in will have more crises; some happening concurrently. If our children, teachers, and other staff are to return to the school environment, it must incorporate more than the academic and fully embrace the importance of emotional and mental health needs. Our schools must not become concentrated areas of anxiety and insecurity for our most vulnerable members of society.