The thing I’ve always loved most during the 15 years I’ve been teaching is the interaction with students; you know, the repartee, the buzz of being ‘out front’, the pleasure from watching students ‘get ‘it!. I have found lockdown a real challenge. All these are missing!
The first week or so was fine, what with all the planning of the work for students to do at home, the setting up of new systems to manage it like Google Classroom, the support provided to and by colleagues. The honeymoon though was well and truly over after the first week! I felt more isolated, more lonely. Every day blended into the other and felt like Groundhog Day!
So I stepped into the unknown to try and cope with the ‘groundhog day’ effect. I needed to ‘talk’ to my students! First I marked some student work by recording audio and sending them the link, then I learnt how to embed a webcam video on my Google Classroom page so I could actually tell my students what I wanted them to do. Feeling more confident, I then added a video to a PowerPoint that I wanted students to work through and tomorrow I’ll have run my first Google Meet with a class. It’s not the same but it feels more like teaching!
I still wish I was back in school though!
