Learning Difficulties: Schools Adapt To Coronavirus Lockdowns

A teacher communicates with her class on a video-conferencing app in Novosibirsk, Russia. 

Yegor Pavlishak studies in his bathrobe alongside his dog, Pinky, in Yevpatoriya, Ukraine. 

Giulio Giovannini studies on his tablet after hiking to the top of a hill near his hometown of Scansano, in central Italy, to pick up reliable 3G Internet to access his teacher’s online lessons. 

A teacher addresses his students through a video-conference call in Tehran. 

Students around the world have mixed responses to the bizarre new teaching conditions. One student in London told The New York Times that some teachers “have just uploaded random files and past papers, etc., and not told us what to do or when it’s due.”

Teacher Evgeniya Gushchina leads an online lesson from her home in the village of Kolodishchi, Belarus.

Other students have been more sympathetic. One told the newspaper, “I feel for our teachers who have had to change everything about their classes. Asking teachers to all of a sudden offer the same kind of curriculum online is impossible, so it is important we stay patient.” 

Russian students study on their laptops after they were driven out of their village near Chelyabinsk to a spot with a strong 3G signal. 

A teacher (right) at a Moscow school holds a class with three students while also streaming the lesson to pupils at home.

Pakistani student Mohammad Ibrahim sketches English letters at home in Islamabad as three of his classmates look on through a video-conferencing app. 

Alice and Joseph Wilkinson take part in a physical-education class at their home in Manchester England. 

A schoolgirl studies in her room in Brussels during the coronavirus lockdown. 

In Tokyo, university graduation ceremonies have been held through iPads attached to “newme” robots. 

Students at a Tokyo school sit in widely spaced chairs after some of Japan’s schools were reopened on April 5. Japan was one of the earliest countries to report coronavirus infections and schools there were ordered closed on February 27. 

One Japanese parent whose son’s school remained closed expressed the stress of the weeks-long shutdown, telling a local news outlet that her son was "spending longer in front of the TV and I am scolding him more frequently.... I am afraid of the coronavirus, but we are reaching our limit living like this."