No break for teachers under MCO

I have seen a growing stream of commentary about the purported lack of day-to-day work educators now have, due to the movement control order (MCO). There is a general sentiment that schools being closed and campuses being off-limits somehow translate into teachers having less to do.

I can’t speak for all schools and neither can I speak for all teachers, but I would like to address some of these conjectures from my perspective as an educator who has had to embrace online teaching at relatively short notice.

To begin with, when you are a teacher, your work really never quite stops. You exist in a cyclical state of planning, preparing, delivering, assessing, giving feedback, reflecting and adjusting. There are very few roles that require one to actively address and lead a room full of individuals day after day, each group for an intense period of one hour before the next group of learners arrives. This is especially so with the responsibility of their education largely placed in one’s hands.

While I feel unequivocally privileged to have this as my profession, when I walk off the school grounds at the end of the day, more often than not I take home with me a mental and physical workload. A teacher’s checklist of all that must be accomplished and done properly, therefore, while well-intentioned, is rarely a fully conquered endeavour.

What many often see as a teacher’s day-to-day job is merely the tip of the iceberg. That which is unseen, though which I can assure you exists, are the late nights, the early starts, the worrying over, thinking and intervening with the child who is falling behind, the keeping up with and extending of the child who is racing ahead, the differentiating for the increasingly diverse learning styles, and the commitment to creating sustainable yet equitable learning opportunities and environments, not to mention the endless stream of marking, the assessment setting, the report writing, the co-curricular programmes, the faculty meetings, the professional development sessions and the communication with parents and guardians.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of what teachers do, although I can assure you that this list can be very exhausting. But I hope that a general picture has begun to emerge. Further, these commitments (with perhaps the exception of co-curricular programmes) continue to be part of a teacher’s workload while they work from home during these extraordinary circumstances.

While a virtual learning environment may remove the physical presence of a teacher, it does not eliminate the various other intricacies of teaching and learning. I must still strive to keep my students interested and motivated from behind a computer screen, I must still endeavour to ensure that every single learner is given the opportunity to engage with my lessons despite them being in an entirely different environment from me, I must still juggle between an average of 20 different learning needs and attention spans, despite not being able to walk around the class and provide quick spates of encouragement and one-on-one contact. I have to do the same job, at the same levels of proficiency, just with fewer tools and resources available to me.

What I could have quickly run my eyes over in the past, over the shoulder of the student, is now a document that has to be emailed to me to be opened, edited and sent back. Feedback that I could have once provided discreetly, in real-time, is now something that I have to type up and carefully word, so as to make sense and have the same meaning when it reaches the student after the class is over. A quick jot on the whiteboard with a marker pen is now a process of presenting a different screen to students and hoping that, despite not being able to see all of their faces, they are nevertheless still there, paying attention.

Moving from a physical classroom to a virtual one, I have had to adapt lessons, resources and activities so that students are still able to enjoy and appreciate the richness and beauty of the subjects I teach despite the unconventional ways in which they are being delivered. I have had to find similar, yet workable alternatives to group work, which just a few weeks ago would have merely required students to stand up and walk over to their peers. I have had to work extra hard to draw out the students, who under normal circumstances try and disappear behind a desk, but now retreat further behind a screen.

For my colleagues who teach practical subjects such as design technology, science, art, drama and physical education, to name just a few, the challenges of transitioning from a physical setting to a virtual one are even more complex. These unprecedented times, far from giving educators a break from the daily rigours of teaching, are in fact putting significant pressure on teachers to do even more and at a far more demanding pace.

It is fair to note, however, that I work in an amazing, state-of-the-art, world-class school where expectations of what we deliver, every lesson, in accordance with the regular timetable, are very high. I realise, therefore, that perhaps many of the comments and criticism levelled at the teaching profession of late may come from parents whose children do not attend schools of a similar calibre.

In solidarity with my fellow educators, however, I feel it is important to note that in the vast majority of cases, teachers are working harder and doing more than they have ever done before.

While parents have, no doubt, had to play a part as co-facilitator in this new learning environment, the responsibility of continuing to navigate a student towards academic success still, and perhaps increasingly, falls squarely upon the shoulders of the teachers who themselves are living through this same period of uncertainty, often while juggling the home-learning of their own children too.

Times are tough for everyone. We are all being asked to do exceptional things and fulfil extraordinary demands. Despite these challenges, educators by and large have continued to equip young minds with the ability to be resilient, creative and resourceful, not to mention lead by example through their own approach to this new virtual learning environment. In the future, these traits will be vital as the youth of today step up to respond to similar and diverse issues and problems, which will no doubt arise in our future.

Gayatri Unsworth is an FMT reader.