Five weeks into distant learning, the pros and the cons

Five weeks ago, after a week of school in early March where you could already feel that the Corona effect was about to burst loose, the schools in the Netherlands closed. Initially for three weeks, although for most people it was pretty clear that five weeks minimum was extremely likely as it would bring many schools up to the spring holiday.  We’ve reached that point, and holiday for me starts this weekend and runs until early May. As I write it is unclear what will happen thereafter, but that should become known sometime in the next week or so.

So, five weeks in, time for a little reflection on how it’s gone and is going. Let’s start with the negatives.

Cons:

• I have undoubtedly put in more hours to my teaching job in a month than quite possibly ever before
• As a result of the above, I go into the holiday hugely behind with my marking
• I feel like I have an office job, stuck behind a desk, staring at a screen for hours on end. Which for an art teacher does come as a bit of a shock.
• I miss massively the contact with the kids, the humour, the silliness and general classroom banter.
• I miss the engagement with the pupils involved in their practical activities, the reaching over a shoulder to guide, coach and advise
• It is too easy for pupils to be invisible. And herein lies the biggest potential problem. Successful and assertive ‘achievers’ will work well. The shy, the strugglers or the disadvantaged (in any number of ways) will run into more difficulties. This potential risk area, means the differences in abilities and achievements in any class is going to magnified.
• The practical possibilities on offer to be able to work into distant learning art practical assignments are greatly reduced. I can’t really assume my pupils have access to much more than their iPad, pencil and pen at home.
• The online lessons whilst being useful are so radically different in almost every way to the sorts of lessons I normally give.  There are possibilities here, but after these first weeks of experimentation I am only really just starting to get my head round the new format and to start to see the opportunities.  Initially you do seem to be constantly hitting your head on the difficulties.

But enough of the negatives, what about the positives….

Pro’s:

• First, and most importantly of all, education is continuing, the form is different, but something is certainly happening!
• The digital know-how and experience of virtually all teachers is coming on in leaps and bounds, instead of it being just the realm of the enthusiasts. I sense that the incredibly difficult to arrange art department meetings might be moving to a digital arrangement next year.
• The pupils are actually turning up on time and doing the assignments at the required moments (at least in my experience)
• The pupils are also rapidly picking up the necessary skills to work in new digital areas.
• The pupils don’t seem to moan any more…..but maybe that’s because their microphones are turned off!
• The one on one contact with pupils is interestingly different.  In the course of the week there’s quite a lot of messaging and chatting with individual pupils about assignments that are being worked on.  This is chatty and friendly and feels somehow different both to the rather awkwardly written emails I sometimes get or the face to face contact in the classroom.  They’ve started wishing me a good weekend, saying that they enjoyed an assignment, some have even asked for extra homework…..this is all rather uncharted and very interesting territory!

I certainly wouldn’t go as far as to say that distant learning is the future of mainstream education. But this is a learning experience for all, and there are undoubtedly things that should be kept in and built on when we do eventually get back into the classroom.

Well it’s a daily rhythm of sorts

The normal working week for me had a regular pattern. There was the time at home at the start of the week preparing for my teaching role in the middle and later part of the week.  School days were long with lengthy travel time at the beginning and end of the teaching day. There were the weekends where the very best was done to make them feel, well, like a weekend.

The last four weeks, like for just about everyone else, has felt very different. I’ve just been reading an article, I think in the Guardian, that said that the education world has been rising to the Corona challenge.  I have a daughter studying at art school in the Netherlands, a brother teaching in the UK and another teaching at a university in Malaysia. Added to this my wife teaches at a university of applied science her in the Netherlands and then there is me, a secondary school teacher. Maybe, just maybe, I’m better placed than most to offer an opinion on the efforts going on in the educational world.

I would certainly feel a large amount of agreement with that newspaper article, education is rising to the challenge.  The urgency of the situation was rapidly clear. The online possibilities were ready, although for most, a little unexplored, to have a serious go at engaging and serving the stay at home pupils. 

A learning curve of dizzying steepness was leapt at.  Teams, Skype, Zoom, Moodles and any number of other online learning opportunities and facilities have been thrown into place.  A process of teacher education that under normal circumstances that would have been spread out over numerous after school sessions spread over months has been picked up and run with.

Have I ever had so many emails, apps, chats and video meetings?  And we really are only at the start of actually providing a form of online teaching of our numerous classes.  This week I am starting with classes of up to 33 pupils online together in a Teams group together. I’m curious to see how it goes. I have to say, that although I’m missing the personal contact, I’m not sure how the online classroom might measure up in filling this gap.

Teachers the world over are undoubtedly putting in plenty of extra time and effort.  I’m also curious to see whether this is being matched by our pupils. At this stage that is rather the great unknown factor. Can they work effectively with us only digitally standing over them. Time will tell. What will be the payback for a one, two, three-month dip in the educational service that we normally provide?

Amongst all this my weekly rhythm has changed, I’m starting to recognize something of a vague pattern. It is hours in front of the computer screen, apping on my phone, writing new material adjusted for the online context, marking, guiding colleagues, liaising with the school leadership, following online teaching courses and so on. 

It’s starting early, finishing late. Technically my job is only 60% full-time. Educational hours always tend to run out of control, now more than ever. But I try to intersperse the screen time with other things to break it up and create rhythm in the days rather than lapsing into a sort of even continuum. For me that means a walk or going out running in the nearby woods. Thank goodness that these things are still an option for me.  Family time and fragmented through it all when the moment presents itself, some painting and drawing.

A future blog post will dive into the theme of online appropriate and stimulating assignments that might work the best.