I TAUGHT for over twenty-five years. Many challenges, many obstacles but nothing compared to what teachers are facing today. It is difficult enough to teach face to face but to do this online, I cannot imagine the demands that teachers face today. It has to be overwhelming. I always told my classes before that students like to go to school but they do not want to go to class. For obvious reasons. And now this pandemic has created the online class. I just do not know if this is effective. Learning in a normal class is difficult but this? I do not know if there is learning that takes place in this environment. Can you imagine a Grade School teacher handling 40 eleven-year-old children in a webinar? Go figure. Or try to teach a group of teenagers Algebra in that kind of set up. Good luck with that. And yet schools go on and tell their teachers to teach.
And the worst part is some schools demand almost impossible. Sadly, these people who demand so much have no idea of what is going on. It is easy to just go and say, teach your students while they sit in their offices. Perhaps these people who give out orders should at least teach one class so they will know, understand, and realize the reality.
A lot of students are now complaining about their classes and who can blame them? A lot of teachers are also shaking their heads and who can blame them? Think. You are a teacher. You have your lesson prepared and you sit in front of your computer. You start and you wonder if all your students are listening. But you go on. The equivalent of this scenario is the teacher who comes to class, gets out a book, and starts reading with his/her face buried in the book. The teacher does not care if you listen or not, the teacher just wants to get this over with. The bell rings and the teacher leaves. Learning? I doubt.
In online classes, some teachers cannot even see their students. Can you imagine that? A teacher who cannot see his/her students. But still, they are ordered to teach because education is essential. Because education is vital. Really? I wonder what the real motivation is.
A wise man, Gilbert Chesterson once remarked “Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.”
That is what teachers have always faced. That is the challenge. To make education meaningful and not just a mindless waste of time. That is what I meant when I told students that they want school but do not like the class.
More so online classes.