Page 64 - BEATS: Secondary School Edition 2020-21

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TOGETHER

t is an ancient Oriental teaching to accept attend in person, while the remainder of
balance as life's master. Light, or dark, the school's populace continued learning
Ithere is never one without the other. online as they had been for the entire
The two lie at an interplay of shadow, like school year.
dappled sunlight.
The hybrid model was not without its
It was this belief that rang true in my challenges, but students both at school
head on April 1 , when the reopening of and at home took to it with a type of
st
the school's gates marked the arrival of confidence not unlike Poe Dameron
2021's second quarter. For the first time in boarding a TIE Fighter and going, “I can
the academic year, we had the opportunity fly anything!”, while figuring out how to not
to step foot inside the corridors that blow himself up on the fly.
everyone—regardless of whether they
admitted it or not—missed more than Perhaps that is not the most effective
they knew. In many ways, returning to analogy, but the DPSI community settled
school was a reminder that there is always into their new-new-new normal fairly
something positive to be found in dark quickly. Unfortunately, however, to quote
times. And the locked-down, socially a famous Japanese proverb; where
distanced, and often sparse landscape of the sun sets once, it will set again. In a
the classes was a reminder that there is stroke of horrible, throw-your-cards-at-
nothing in the world that is purely good. the-wall luck, the beginning of inperson
school coincided with a dramatic spike in
Between anticipation, anxiety, and the COVID cases in India, and when the virus
now-unfamiliar daily grind of the school permeated the DPSI bubble, it was time to
day, those at school might as well have call it quits. Even though the hybrid school
randomly woken up in Ancient Rome experiment wasn't able to sustain itself for
speaking no Latin. But that didn't stop long, it was a testament to the dedication
us from savoring the little semblance of of both teachers and students to make
normalcy that this return provided us sure the learning process was as optimal
nonetheless. DPSI opened under a hybrid as they could make it.
model; students that could come and
felt safe coming to school showed up to — Manya Malhotra, DP 1

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