It is confusing? Or not

Christmas and New Year are around. For the children, the holiday season is a long and joyous stay at home, among other things. This year, though, it seems they are having a mixed feeling about it. “But we’ve been home all the time,” my 12-year old daughter said, having not decided yet how to position this vacation.

Saving the academic year by migrating it to online platforms does well in redeeming its management and teaching aspects. This, by itself, is a great achievement that followed great work. But what about the social side of the academic year? That side where children grow up together and interact and play and do pranks and laugh and dream and share their little secrets. This, I am sure, was what my daughter was insinuating.

It is not just about teaching

It has always been an open discussion as to how much of a social life should a school provide. Schools went in many directions, providing longer breaks between the classes, more extra-curricular activities, diverse society-oriented work, and other things. Unfortunately, the pandemic practically brought all this to a full stop. But, determined not to be stopped, my daughter and her friends seemed to have a way. They moved their school breaks, for instance, to the online domain, circulating their stories, reviewing classes together, planning for the weekend, and, I have to say this, mimicking their teachers and sharing hearty laughs about it. This is all about students interacting among themselves.

Skoolee offers a space for student interaction, and plans to make this space even wider. Skoolee already caters extensively to the school’s rather important management and education parts. Yet it also provides a platform for social interaction via its Communication, Chat Rooms, Notifications, Gallery, and Blog sections. We are now in the process of expanding and orienting things to provide versions of these sections that are totally run and managed by students, and that enhance student collaboration. We do this because, at White Mountain, we are convinced that the social part of the school’s life is equally important.