It’s been more than half a year since the Covid-19 pandemic has forced schools to move to remote learning, both here in the States as well as in Singapore around mid-March to April. Two articles I came across gives us only a small glimpse of how great a challenge and impact social inequality and disparity has on society and the implications for Christians and the church. In a Straits Times (ST) article (18 April 2020, Venessa Lee & Stephanie Yeo), titled “How home-based learning shows up inequality in Singapore,” three families were interviewed and featured, discussing the struggles of children face with home-based learning (HBL), especially those coming from low-income families with multiple siblings.
How home-based learning shows up inequality in Singapore (Credit: ST Alphonsus Chern)
One is a Malay family living in a 2-room rental flat, where the sole-breadwinning husband left his job in February due to health issues, and their 4 children (aged 9-14) share 1 subsidised laptop and 2 school-loaned devices, using their mother’s smartphone as a Wi-Fi hotspot.
A KRQE/Nexstar article (Oct 19, 2020, Corey King) featured how a picture went viral of a fourth-grader (equivalent of Primary 4) in New Mexico who walked to school for four weeks every day at 7.30am and sat outside the building to use the school’s Wi-Fi for virtual learning. A GoFundMe page was started to crowdfund for him and other Roswell who have no Internet service; it has raised close to USD20k (way surpassing their 2.5k target). In the U.S., Covid-19 and virtual learning has affected over 55 million school-going children under age 18. In another similarly staggering figure, between mid-March to August, within just 20 weeks, 55 million workers filed for unemployment benefits/claims.
Fourth-grader walks, sits outside of school for internet access to attend virtual learning (Credit: KRQE Nexstar)Many parents and their young children have been generally struggling with adjusting to home-based, virtual learning, myself and my son included, with the extended screen time, Zoom fatigue, and the changing and ever-evolving social/learning dynamics, interface and platforms. Yet for many, perhaps even the silent majority, this pandemic has brought out and back to the forefront, social inequality, the disparity and divide between the rich and poor, the have and have-nots, and even more hot-buttoned and controversial, systemic injustice, racism, discrimination and prejudice. Low-income families struggling with lack of internet/computers, lack of access to healthcare, living in poverty-stricken areas, with schools struggling with lack of funding, and loss of jobs, especially among blue-collar, daily-wage workers, have all snowballed into a growing problem that many are not aware or choose not to focus on, or worse, close or turn a blind eye to, likely those who are in middle to upper-income levels, stable white-collar environments, children going to good schools, often privileged, entitled, or even spoilt.
I am painting an extreme picture here, but even as we point out the speck in others’ eyes, let us also examine the log in our own (Matt. 7.1-5). May the harsh realities amplified or surfaced by the pandemic not just move us to compassion, but drive us to our knees in contrite, repentant prayer, and lead our hearts and hands to action to help and bless others around us. Let us choose (and teach our children) to be image-bearers of God/Christ and His love/gospel, to do justice/act justly, love mercy/kindness and walk humbly with our God (Mic. 6:8).
