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Last week I held general office hours, as another experiment in seeing how students would do with some online conferencing, and a group of grade 12 @BloorCI students who normally sit together in my Equity and Social Justice class, made the call.
A number of them are currently working, a lot of hours, at grocery stores to pay for what they hope will be a running post-secondary system in September. Anyway, it was very clear they just wanted to... connect a little? Talk? (Cameras were off, so only audio.)
As much to each other, as with me, or any other teacher. I'm realizing that as much as they exist on social media and other digital tools, they don't really connect in a way that is always meaningful.
And I think part of it is related to the way their relationships are constructed, and there isn't really a vehicle for connecting outside of text sometimes (like a phone call isn't typical anymore.) So it was nice to talk and hear one another.
They asked a lot of questions about the pandemic, and viruses and all the things you would imagine curious teenagers would want to know about.
Being an equity course, we talked about the inequities being exacerbated by this crisis, and my heart swelled with analyzed what was happening with the frameworks they had learned about in the course (lots of discussion about race and public health.)
Anyway, it did a lot to make me feel re-energized, the way classes sometimes do, and I recognize it was only for a few students who happened to be on the same time together. But I think it mattered, and I am grateful I could facilitate that.
I think it's clear how much I love my job and my students, but I can tell you I will have a whole other level of appreciation for all of it when we return, and I can be in the same spaces as those students, as they explore the world.
So much of what we do and offer as teachers is missing right now, and it means as much to us as it does to them.
Thanks for letting us be a part of your kids’ lives; even in a pandemic. I hope we continue to try and reach all of them now; and that we redouble on those efforts when this is done, and back in our schools.
