My Experience in Class 9
Shradheya
Krishna Manandhar
DAV Shushil Kedia Bishwa Bharati Higher
Secondary School
Class 9 of 2021/22
In a student’s life, Class 9 and 10
has a special importance. But in the year 2019 to 2021, the entire world was in
the grip of COVID pandemic, and the academic calendar was severely affected.
The academic session for 2021/22 started nearly two months late, only in June,
than in the usual month of April, after the government allowed opening of the
schools through online mode, due to the existing second wave of the COVID pandemic.
On 6th June, 2021, we
excitedly started our new session of class 9 – through online mode. We got new
subject teachers, just like always when we start our new grade and came to know
them, but this time, all the teachers were only known to us virtually and
physicaly meeting them was not possible. Thus there was seemingly “less bond between
students and teachers”, nevertheless, the teachers tried to build a cordial
bond with their students. From July 2021, we started using the Veda School App
for online classes, which was more convenient than the previous system.
During the first few weeks of class 9
everything started in a slow pace. We did not receive our text books timely, so
for the first two weeks, our teachers taught us without our books. But
suddenly, we got the heat of class 9, and we were in constant pressure to
manage our classes with a fast pace. I remember that suddenly the volumes of
homeworks, especially in maths and optional maths, increased drastically to a
point where we had to spend about 5 hours daily completing those two subject’s
homeworks only. This was the first time I tasted continuous pressure, which I
had never before experienced. I felt that when we spend some time in social
media – we found our remaining works piled up many folds.
Homeworks for all other subjects also
started to increase, so we were deprived of our free time. The teachers
constantly demanded completed works. My parents were also surprised with the
amount of answers written in Social Studies. It was tiresome indeed at first,
but then slowly all this became a habit and it wasn’t much of a burden as it
was when we started class 9. Due to online class, we could spare lot of our
time in commuting to school, and non-class times at school. This was a good
advantage of online classes – but had to spend most of our time in our desks
with our books and notebooks.
The first few months of class 9 was
hard for me. I felt that things got complicated all of a sudden. The amount of
knowledge and information that we needed to remember in different subjects
started increasing. The amount of formulae in Maths, Optional Maths, Science,
Optional Science, Social Studies etc. suddenly became more than I had
previously experienced. At first instance, it was difficult for me to
understand most of the topics or concepts, unlike that I used to easily
understand them in my previous lower grades – this made me nervous and uneasy
of the subjects. Slowly on, only after practicing a few times did the difficult
maths problems and concepts did become clearer and manageable. During
examinations, I was stressed since I had to study till late nights in order to
complete my revision. Bringing together all the subjects, it was difficult for
me to adapt to the large amount of subject matter to remember in a short period
of time. With constant practice, I
managed to score a full marks in Maths and Optional Maths in my 1st Periodic
Exam.
Exams are quite a burden, it always
used to be – but in class 9, it was more so. Due to already decreased working
days due to late starting of session, the exams were frequently spaced. Time
intervals between exams were quite short in some exams, - only a month of
schooldays between some exams. These frequent exams did make us feel frustrated
and tired but it taught me a very important thing -- it taught me that one has
to face the obstacles and train yourself to work under pressure, since circumstances
may not be in your favour all the time. I recall the saying “time and tide wait
for no man”.
Online Class Works
The online classes due to second wave
of COVID from start of new academic session in June 2021, to end of Tihar
vacation in 8th Nov. 2021. for a total of about 5 months
continuously. In these 5 months we had two online exams. The 1st Periodic
Exam was held on 25th August 2021 after about 2 and half months of
schooldays. The online exam was a 2-hour exam, for 25 marks weightage. Online
exams were not inconvenient to the student, except that the exam papers must be
photographed and upload in the system. When there is internet problem, this
becomes a problem too. In my sister’s school, after uploading the exam papers,
the original papers needed to be submitted in the school. This may be
burdensome to the parents, but was convenient to the teachers who check the
exam papers, because checking scanned exam papers for the teachers is
understandably a difficult task.
Only a month after the 1st
Periodic Exam, we had to appear for the Half Yearly Exam which was held
on 23rd September 2021. The exam was a 3-hour exam which
carried 75 marks. The online class continued till start of Dashain Vacation in
7th October 2021. During the 13 days of Dashain vacation (7th
October to 19th October), we were given some homeworks to keep us
busy. Online classes were held for a week between Dashain and Tihar holidays (3rd
to 8th November, 2021) during 20th October to 2nd
November, 2021.
After Dashain-Tihar vacation, the school
finally re-opened physically on November 8th, 2021. It was
the first time we could meet our friends and teachers. Meeting our friends
after about 8 months, I was surprised to find them grow so much into
adolescence – both physically and mentally. We also got to know our subject teachers
better.
When physical school started, the
teachers were more strict and also increased the speed of the classes - so we were on the run once again. Only after
2 weeks of school, we had our 2nd Periodic Exam from 28th
November to December 4th 2021. This was our first physical exams
in school, which was a 2-hour exam, for total marks of 75 marks. Immediately after
this exams, studies continued as normal again.
Non-Academics
On the lighter side, we also had some
fun events during these months. We saw a movie named, “Jungle Cruise”. We
enjoyed the movie in a theater-like environment with some popcorn and juice, with
our friends. The last day of school before the winter vacation was celebrated
as a dance and potluck party. We tried to cheer each other up with jokes,
talked about school, songs and dances. The girls danced in the hall, and the
boys were the audience, until one boy joined the dance group and all the boys
joined them. The boys would haphazardly noisily jumping and moving, while the
girls were just showing off their exquisite dance moves to their friends. It
was a fun day. During lunch we had a potluck party with soft drinks, fast food,
cake and other snacks. The girls served the food, and the boys helped by eating
in discipline. In between there were continuous burst of laugher for jokes and
conversations. Many photos were clicked by our teachers and later shared to us.
This event did make us release the stresses of our everyday schooldays.
During Vacations
The 3-week winter vacation started
from 25th December, 2021. During my winter vacation, my
parents encouraged me to make a study report on the historical and cultural
significance of Patan Durbar Square area, since we were living close to this
historic area. For the report I studied and researched about the architecture,
significance and history of various Malla era palaces, temples, bihars,
mahabihars, monuments, housing structure, in Patan. I could write two articles on
the basis of the information I gathered from visiting the site and also by
researching in the web. This research work made me aware of the different
aspects of the Patan historical and cultural importance. I also made a
powerpoint presentation of my research work and hope to present before my class
in future. With this knowledge about the Patan Durbar Square, I could deliver
an explanation to one American uncle, who recently visited Kathmandu for the
first time. This experience of explaining to a foreigner gave me confidence of
explaining to other foreigner tourists coming to Patan Durbar Square. I have
started to volunteer to give a guiding tour to tourists of Patan Durbar Square,
and till now I have talked with 5 such tourists and will continue it during my
free time. This has given me confidence to spontaneously talk with foreigners
in a subject of my interest.
I also visited different places with
my family, and also alone, during my winter break. My family and I climbed the
hill to the Palanchowk Bhagwati temple and it was a thrilling experience to
hike the hills, rather than take a vehicle ride – though we were “lost” for
half a day, because we took an uncommon track uphill. Similarly we also visited
the Kulekhani reservoir (known as Indra Sarobhar). We saw the man-made high dam
that stopped the water to form a large lake, which was more than 7 km in
length. We took a refreshing boating ride and hiking. I was also allowed to go
on a solo trip to different places within the Kathmandu valley. I visited the
Godawari botanical garden and forests of Phulchowki, which I completely
enjoyed. I also hiked the hills of Shivapuri National Park. I had a splendid
experience in those places, where I experienced the beauty of nature.
During the winter vacation, the third
wave of COVID struck (Omicron wave) broke out in Kathmandu valley and the
government ordered a closedown of physical school, due to which online classes from
19th January to February 12th,
2022, had to be conducted.
Finally the school was allowed to
physically re-opened from 13th February, 2022 and we were
back to our studies and previous pace. After a month of class, the Pre-Final
Exams was held from 6th to 15th March, 2022,
physically in school. We had only 3 weeks to prepare for the Final Exams, after
the Pre-Final Exam. We had to revise the entire one year’s syllabus for the
Final Exam, and the time available was grossly not sufficient. Anyway, we could
not do anything about it, except to manage the time available to us – studies
till late nights was common. But I also learned that it is not good to over
strain ourselves, because I got fever on the last day of my Pre-Final Exams,
but could luckily appear for the exam.
Our Final Exams was held from 3rd
to 12th April, 2022. I was very relieved after my last
exam. My parents were also satisfied with my performance in grade 9. We had our PTC (report card day distribution)
on 23rd April, 2022, and were ready to start our grade 10
from May 02, 2022.
The year 2019 to 2021 were difficult
years of all citizen as well as students. The school students were able to take
COVID vaccines 1st dose in 16th November, 2021, to
safeguard against the disease. In the school year, there were some drawbacks
this year, due to the COVID and online classes, extra-curricular activities
such as different competitions, like essay writing competitions, literature and
poem competitions, was not conducted.
Similarly, Family Jamboree, the Olympiad examinations were also
cancelled. Thus students didn’t have many activities or events to cheer us up
through the class days. This year we didn’t make our Academic Portfolio Files,
as we used to do every year. Portfolio Files contained accounts of all the
extra-curricular activities, along with our achievements etc. One of the main
things we missed due to not making our Portfolio are our pictures, clicked
through different times of the year and recorded in our files, for future
memories. The student life pictures would stay as a long term memory if it had
recorded in our Portfolios and we would get to remember these precious moment
in the future.
Conclusion
I experienced many things in class 9.
First thing is I understood the value of time. Increased work load and deadline
to submission of assignments made me busy throughout the evenings. I had to
minimize my distractions and had to spend more time to concentrated study.
Homeworks with due dates really made me work consistently in order to submit my
works on time. In class 9 the level of mainly Maths and Optional Maths grew
drastically. I grew anxious and started to sometimes feel scared. This time
around I started practicing Maths and also gradually improved and became
confident. The second thing I have improved is studying under pressure. Due to
frequent examinations with vast syllabus, I learnt to absorb much information
in a short period of time, it includes concepts, definitions, dates, formulas
etc. I sincerely hope that 2022/23 session of our class 10 days will not be
shadowed by another wave of COVID, and we can concentrate in our studies.
Lastly, in November 2022, we will be able to enjoy the FIFA World Cup Soccer
tournament, and hope it does not hinder our preparation for our Final SEE Exams,
to be held in April 2023.
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