Supplying? Virtually? Me?

I had an odd start to the day recently. It was early ... well, retirement early, acknowledging that it's all relative ... enough in the morning that steam was still rising from my beloved cuppa Joe, and a call came through from an ex-colleague. We're friends, but more along professional lines, making it curious that the call was coming through so early. I answered it more out of curiousity than anything else. The reason for the call elicited a minor level of anxiety because I was asked if I would consider supplying virtually next week for a young teacher who was very pregnant and not able to make it to the semester's end. 

If this time in educational history was anywhere near normal, the request for a week's supply work would have been quickly considered, weighing positives vs negatives, likely taking less than 30 seconds to make a decision. I really don't mind supplying in the classroom, partly because I still really enjoy teaching young people, but also partly because I still feel competent about what I have to offer. 

Unfortunately, we are not operating in a normal time and my mind immediately raced through the must-dos to be able to pull this off ...
Do I have the understanding of D2L?
Maybe.
Do I have the equipment to use?
Another maybe.
Do I have the patience and skill to handle 5 days of a class in a virtual setting?
Hmmmm.
Do I really wish to go down that road?
Nope!

I don't wish to leave you hanging. I contemplated all of those questions and politely declined. A small part of me feels guilty for leaving my friend in a pickle, but the larger portion feels justified because, being a closet perfectionist, bumbling and stumbling through the task was not fair to the students. Of course, the elephant in the room was the recent rise in Covid-19 numbers and the news of the variant outbreak at Roberta Place in the city's south end,

After the call ended with some pleasantries and well wishes, I found myself dwelling on the state of education right now, with the stress of the pandemic, spiced with my continuing perceived lack of leadership and compassion from the Ford government, topped off with anxiety born out of learning how to do something that was so comfortably done in a totally different way. The pangs of empathy for my friends still toiling in the trenches were biting, causing a gnawing growl way deep down inside. I am totally on side with having to adapt to the craziness caused by Covid-19, and support the decision to make attempts to continue educating the province's future despite all of the changes to the norm, but that doesn't make the stress any easier to accept. I'll readily admit that teachers, on the whole, while adapting to the changes in their regularly superhuman manner, are voicing their displeasure with the powers that be through a variety of Social Media platforms, some being quite blunt in the criticism.

Unfortunately, the latest scuttlebutt from the Minister Stephen Lecce came as a wishy washy decision to allow some areas to return to in-person teaching while keeping other areas in the virtual world. The teacher's federations were quick to condemn the lack of clear expectations and deadlines attached to the wishy washy decision, then quickly turned on the attack when proof of their mismanagement was confirmed by a Toronto Star expose. If I were still in the trenches, I know that I echo the concerns made by some many friends about the uncertainty and its effect on planning. What most people who have never taught don't appreciate is the long-range organization that is paramount to ensuring quality education. Being left to blow in whatever breeze #fordnation chooses to blow does not allow for long term planning. Combine that with the fact that many in the profession have 20+ years in the classroom and have only recently accepted the move away from filing cabinets of lovingly created units with years of experience to Gigabytes of assignments on an external hard drive or some cloud application necessary for on-line teaching. Yes, it's part of the job to stay current, but the loudest complaint is the lack of in-service training on HOW to use these new virtual platforms, and despite most having worked hard to do so, are learning to swim by being thrown into the river. The worst of it boils down to Ontario's education worker's voiced concerns about the cyber infrastructure's tendency toward being unstable. 

Stressful barely explains the situation.

One of the most significant issues with virtual teaching has only recently come to light for me. As regular readers of this Blog will know, I participate in a weekly Zoom call with former BCC colleagues, and that experience has unveiled some conversational obstacles that would plague teachers each and every day. For one, most people will accept that much of our conversational understanding of others is thanks to the non-verbal cues and clues humans employ to accompany their words. While Zoom (or Meet or Skype or Teams) offers us full faces to see, with all of it's facial twerks and jerks, it pales in the level of understanding achieved when body posture and gestures are combined with the facial gymnastics. For another, these various platforms throttle the volume of others to allow for clearer broadcasting of the present speaker, resulting in stilted conversations that are less than ideal for cognition. One of the least talked about issues is a tremendously steep learning curve surrounding all of the virtual tools in place for the overwhelming majority of classroom workers, and the lack of advanced notice for implementation, leading to my previously indicated bumbling and stumbling. You can't "fake it" in a room (in person or virtual) of teens because they'll sniff out the blood faster than a hungry Great White Shark.

Fully acknowledging that I have very little virtual teaching experience, I am of the opinion that instructors feel more like actors and less like educators. There's a huge disconnect when teaching is not done face to face, the largest portion being the severely reduced instant feedback of the audience. Teaching is not acting, never was, never will be, but being the sole member of the cast, crew, director, producing, and editing team has got to take 4 or 5 times the energy, on top of the extra 60 to 90 minutes it would take to plan for multiple hours of "performing" each day. 

I'm never going to convince the public who cannot find it in their hearts to appreciate the Herculanean efforts teachers give that a change in attitude is required. If Joe Public relishes teacher bashing already, asking for sympathy about virtual classrooms is a far reaching request. If, however, there are those that can appreciate the seemingly thankless task educators willingly accept, then perhaps these few tidbits of the information has germinated new understanding. 

That's really my goal.

To all my fellow educators, please know that you will always have my utmost respect, admiration, thanks, and appreciation for the role you sacrifice so much of your life to fill. You are grooming the future leaders of our society, our civilization, our planet ... I cannot, with all bias, think of a more noble pursuit.

Click here for a special message. And please accept my sincerest thanks.

PS: Found a pretty neat FB post by Teresa Thayer Snyder, retired superintendent of the Voorheesville district in upstate New York. In it, she completes her thoughts with, "Being a teacher is an essential connection between what is and what can be. Please, let what can be demonstrate that our children have so much to share about the world they live in and in helping them make sense of what, for all of us has been unimaginable." Her point is to accept the kiddies back into the classroom, whenever that happens, with open arms, love, and patience and not concerns over how much "they've fallen behind".