My thoughts about Education Humanities, Technology and Digital Culture. Interested on social media tools in educational contexts and
gamification in education.
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.(...)
Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
Spring is back! On a Easter morning it's a poem we can repeat that makes Spring seem more intensely itself.
Today is Easter,the most important Christian religious holiday and widely regarded as the second most popular holiday in general afterChristmas.
Students and teachers got Easter school break in European countries where the schools are not closed.
But more or less all around the world, most of students are at home, on remote learning due the pandemic time that continues unfortunately.
It’s impossible to overstate what this crisis will mean for the pandemic generation.
There is no doubt that persistent lockdowns and school closings have affected children everywhere.
Extensive surveys conducted by Save the Children also found that nearly half of all children said they were “worried” and a third reported feeling “scared.”
The sudden closing of schools and elimination of educational summer activities in many communities might have lifelong consequences for children who already live with severe social and economic adversities, impairing even further their ability to read at grade level, graduate from high school on time and have equitable access to post-education opportunities generally. - wrote Irwin Redlener on The Washington Post.
However, we should acknowledge that some children have exhibited unexpectedly high levels of resiliency and independence while dealing with the restrictions and disruptions imposed by the pandemic.
I would like to share with you a message of hope.
Life can toss us down and make us fall out of the blue, but the hope inside us will pick us up again and again!
We do not lose heart when we fail in life, as it is only the start of our journey. In the end, we will be the one to achieve our goals.
World Youth Skills Day 2020 will take place in a challenging context. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures have led to the worldwide closure of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, threatening the continuity of skills development.
Currently, more than 1 in 6 young people are out of work due to COVID-19. As young people are called upon to contribute to the recovery effort, they will need to be equipped with the skills to successfully manage evolving challenges and the resilience to adapt to future disruptions.
Respondents to a survey of TVET institutions, jointly collected by UNESCO, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank, reported that distance training has become the most common way of imparting skills, with considerable difficulties regarding, among others, curricula adaptation, trainee and trainer preparedness, connectivity, or assessment and certification processes.
The World Youth Skills Day 2020 under the theme “Skills for a Resilient Youth” is co-organized by the Permanent Missions of Portugal and Sri Lanka to the United Nations, together with UNESCO, ILO and the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth.
The focus will be on resilience. In the short term, this implies making young people resilient to rapid changes in prospects for employment and entrepreneurship in the sectors that are hardest hit by the crisis, namely wholesale and retail trade, autorepair, manufacturing, real estate, administrative activities, accommodation and food services.
In the longer term, this implies helping skills development systems adapt to changes in the world economy that the pandemic and recession will bring.
Owing to the COVID-19 situation, the celebrations of the World Youth Skills Day 2020 will have a virtual format. A panel discussion will bring together multiple stakeholders in skills development including young people, member States, TVET institutions, the private sector, workers’ organizations, policy makers and development partners. An online discussion with the audience will follow.
assess the short-, medium-, and long-term impacts of the pandemic in different country contexts;
share good practices from TVET institutions about how they have responded to the pandemic. For example, how institutions have provided distance learning in no-tech, low-tech and high-tech scenarios, and how teachers and trainers have been supported;
gain insights from private sector, employee, and employer stakeholders about the impact of the pandemic on their sectors, and the changes in job profiles and skills needs that they foresee;
learn from young people about their hopes and fears as well as the opportunities that they see moving forward;
reflect on how TVET systems can respond to the short- and medium-term impact of the pandemic, while also keeping in mind longer-lasting challenges.
Prior to the current crisis, young people aged 15-24 were three times more likely than adults to be unemployed and often faced a prolonged school-to-work transition period.
Skills Agenda's objective is to equip young people with the skills to successfully manage evolving challenges in green and digital transformations and the resilience to adapt to future disruptions.
Submission: TVET Youth Stories 2020
Schools and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions around the world have closed in massive numbers due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As young people have continued to showcase their adaptability and resilience despite the current challenges, UNESCO-UNEVOC encouraged them to submit videos of how they were continuing to learn during lockdown.
These stories are part of a campaign to mark World Youth Skills Day (WYSD) and highlight the importance of skills development for a resilient youth.
In post-COVID-19 societies, as young people are called upon to contribute to the recovery effort, they will need to be equipped with the skills to successfully manage evolving challenges and the resilience to adapt to future disruptions.
Let’s encourage the youth to acquire valuable and resilient skills because the success of the nation always depends on the success of its youth.
"We are leaving through unimaginable tragedies, in a time that I could best describe as the posthuman era. More than ever, we need to dance with purpose, to remind the world that humanity still
exists."
Gregory Vuyani Maqma
2020 is a year with even more challenges for the performing arts community all over the world.
Almost all the Centres of ITI are not able to celebrate International Dance Day with an event because of the outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. Therefore, the General Secretariat Team of ITI initiates that all the members and friends celebrate International Dance Day 2020 - online.
The invited dancer is the dancer, choreographer, actor, and dance educator Gregory Vuyani Maqma.
The intention of the creators of International Dance Day (IDD) was
to inspire professionals, amateurs and aficionados of dance all over
the world. It was and is a call for celebrating dance in all its possible
forms – ballet, classical dance, modern dance, ethnic dance,
improvised dance, experimental dance and any kind of dance.
And this intention is even more important during the time of social
distancing. We need to encourage. We need to keep our passion
alive. That is the reason the members and friends of dance are
continuing to celebrate International Dance Day in 2020 online.
ITI is showing initiatives of encouragement
and support and International Dance Day is presenting
actions concerning the celebration of the Day and translations of
the message.
Let’s be united in this action for the benefit of each and everybody who loves, theatre and shares our values for a culturally rich and peaceful world.
Lockdown dancing
Copyright: Other 3rd Party
Education:
"As we dance with our bodies, tumbling in space and tangling together, we become a force of
movement weaving hearts, touching souls and providing healing that is so desperately needed."
Gregory Vuyani Maqma
Beautiful message! So inspirational to students and teachers on this day! We all have students who live difficult times in lockdown.
Danceis a fun and fresh activity to include into School curriculum. School curricula without Arts (Music, Dance, Theater) will be unfinished and insufficient. Students will have an incomplete education.
Young dancers and all students are stuck in their homes and unable to go to the dance schools and schools for classes.
This year invite your students to dance online: ballet, contemporary, tap, highland, street dance, jazz, modern dancing, via social media: YouTube, Instagram Zoom app or Facebook.
