As we Revert!

We are now at the endemic stage of the Coronavirus and for many of us it is an opportunity to breathe easily once again. In many countries, the restrictions that became so common-place over the past two and a half years are gradually being lifted. Change is inevitable! Yet one must ask: “What are we changing to?”

While as educators we are happy to see students back into the schools, walking and greeting us on the school’s corridors while interacting with their peers, there is a measure of sadness that overshadows our new reality. “So no more ZOOMING?”, “No more GOOGLE Classroom?” As an educator, one had the opportunity to bring a wide range of electronic resources into the teaching and learning process that were not so easily available or were not seen as having utility prior to the pandemic. The classroom came alive and many educators can attest to actually getting more work done than they did before. Once an educator had sharpened up on their questioning skills, classes were vibrant as students were well engaged, sharing their opinions, doing presentations and in some cases even other family members were part of the process. Not to mention the absolutely shocking realization that you did not have to spend a large portion of your class time addressing issues of indiscipline. Classroom management was a cool breeze.

Assessment of a child’s ability became a creative endeavor. Students uploaded pictures and videos of them doing projects, engaged in live discussions and they learnt many soft skills like how to make a PowerPoint presentation; how to make a video and present a document. Both educators and parents learnt new skills as well, in fact, it was a time of retraining and development for most of us world-wide. To what end?

As an educator, I was excited to enter this new dispensation, where the virtual world and the physical would become so intertwined that it would appear seamless. I had high expectations for the future and for the level of future engagement of my students. Since for sure, they now know how to use the internet to gather sound information other than subscribing to the wild mood swings of social media. Certainly, now parents are more vested in the education of their children beyond the elementary level and would ensure they fulfil their part. A form of ‘check and balances’ was in place as everyone, and I mean everyone held educators accountable for what they said and did in the classroom. Yet this, was the reality.

Students came to school with brand new note books. You may say to yourself, “So what?” This was not a case of note books being used to their last leaf and so new ones were required. This was a significant symbol of a mental state. As though the brain had survived a coma and everything was new again. A state in which many may agree, where we have now returned to what is ‘normal‘. Back to how things were, where there will be no more Zooming or Google classroom. In fact, many of those accounts have found themselves in the ‘www graveyard’, along with whatever atrocities were taught then. Children sit before you as dear angels, genuinely appearing to not know what you believed you taught. Large chunks of memory have been evaporated and you find yourself questioning the meaning of life. Perhaps not so deep an introspection but one nonetheless.

Did you also experience this as an educator? Were you prepared for this reality? Am I alone in this experience?

So we resume, now with an apparent resentment for anything online or virtual. The children are immediately sickened by hearing these trigger words. We move forward with the aim of rebuilding the blocks of memory that have been lost and we taper our expectations for the approaching months. We continue to rise above the limitations encountered daily and meet our charges where they are, so we can bring them to where they need to be. For such is the role of an educator regardless of the time or season we may find ourselves in. So for some of us and I do stress some, we bid farewell to the Zooming era and to Google Classroom as we find strategies to assist our recovering coma patients.