COVID Thoughts as a Teacher

This was my initial take in Early April.

If I didn't know any better I would argue that the powers that be have contrived to turn us all into online facilitators. That is the reality of the teaching. Internet resources can easily turn a Google Classroom into a knowledge oasis and if you play this well 'the medium can indeed deliver the message'. However even with broadband and the luxury of Google Meet and other face-to-face substitutes we are still at a deficit to the real classroom. Humans are social animals (most of us anyway) and online platforms can only approximate the energy of our classrooms.

My Grade 12 students have (at least it seems) come to the realization that teachers will do their best to ensure that their post graduate opportunities will not be jeopardized in the fall. The school boards have systematic workarounds and we as educators are as transparent with the students as we can be. It is a completely different paradigm to what anyone of us are used to and as long as the students know that we are there to support them, then we will navigate through this crisis...somehow.

This was my take in Late April.

Kids are different to adults. They are more forgiving. When I err (usually with a typo on a Google doc) they will point it out but it is usually with a sense that my notes are their notes as well. For many it is a team effort. Most of the school boards if not all have gone with a maxim that the student's marks cannot drop from the 13th of March cut off date (last school date before closure here in Ontario) which has the possible repercussion of encouraging a slacker effect for those that are prone to the minimum. However I haven't noticed that with my students. In fact if anything it has taken off the grade pressure from many of them as they can now focus on merely elevating their mark without the downside of test slip-ups. An added bonus is that a leeway has been built in for improvement based on realistic evaluation.

As a teacher this means that I have more students as a whole focusing on the enrichment that the material brings. Kids are asking me to go further than the curriculum entails which as a lover of my discipline (physics) is a rare blessing that doesn't come along normally in the regularity of the average school year. Students can learn for the sake of knowledge itself and that truly is an unexpected windfall from what could have been a more turbulent educational experience. Tough times albeit with a silver lining.