As promised, here we go with a thread about OCD & the f2f teaching that so many universities including my own are trying to make us do
Cc @MadCovid #MadCovidChat
1/ https://twitter.com/EHopeDoherty/status/1309261484543877122

Firstly I will say I used to have germ-related OCD (in 2016 & 2017). As @hagenilda has pointed out before, not all OCD is germ-related (remember all those fucking awful articles going around back in March/April about OCD being "helpful"?)
This is not about that. 2/

Germ-related OCD is involved, but I'm seeking to make a wider point that the elevated responsibility required for TAs/teaching staff to keep students ~as safe as possible~ (in this context what does that even mean) has potential to create & reinforce thought patterns of OCD 3/

By which I mean obsessive anxiety, spiralling worry that allows room for no other thoughts, & possibly also behaviours that promise to ease these points of worry but which never do & instead become repetitive, compulsive & ultimately debilitating. 4/

So as someone who is relatively 'recovered' (I don't know how I feel abt this word but here is not the place for that rumination) from OCD, I can predict how this is going to go for me. We were told yesterday TAs are responsible for cleaning rooms before & after teaching. 5/

Not that I'd want anyone else to have to do this job either! But this job is going to be difficult for TAs bc we will clean the room, then sit/stand for an hour watching the students touch and use the surfaces, especially desks, that we have just cleaned. 6/

So the worst thing for me is going to be watching the students & thinking, 'oh shit oh fuck they just touched that piece of desk, did I clean that bit of desk adequately? What if I didn't, just by my own carelessness, & I've now at worst endangered their life?' 7/

Then there's 'That student just touched the desk, and then they rubbed their eye after. What if there's harmful chemicals in the cleaning equipment I used & what if it was still wet & they're now going to have a poorly eye?' 8/

Another possibility: 'So the cleaning equipment has been handled by other people. What if I accidentally brushed my clothes against one of the containers (eg a bottle of spray) and then this contaminated spot on my clothes fell against one of the desks, maybe on the underside 9/

where I didn't notice? And what if I didn't clean that part of the desk well enough, & now there's a dangerous area on the desk for the student to unknowingly touch? Esp bc the cleaning equipment will surely be hotspots of virus bc they're used to clean communal surfaces?' 10/

And on and on it goes. I can think of more examples (haha of course I can) but hopefully you can see how OCD thought patterns can so easily become attached to this one responsibility among many. 11/

My germ related OCD was/is quite specific so I don't tend to worry about covid for myself (thankfully) but it's easy to imagine how this thought process might go with - rationally & understandably - worrying about catching covid oneself as well. 12/

And then multiply all these possibilities for the students. A student might come into the room & concentrate the whole time on not touching the desk, bc they don't know how trustworthy the cleaning technique of the TA has been. They might get pins&needles/cramp as a result 13/

(This happened to me a lot when I was ill with OCD as an undergrad; often I'd get muscle tension headaches from angling my head to avoid touching it on the backrest of a chair and so on) 14/

I won't bother illustrating all the possible scenarios for students bc I'm sure you get the idea by now! My point is that f2f teaching in this current situation (esp in Durham where we are currently in a local lockdown, which management seem to have forgotten) is going to 15/

cause so many difficulties from a mental health perspective on top of everything else. We already know that mental illness in student populations is frequent. My point here is that, even for those without pre-existing mental illness, 16/

the stress involved in leading/attending f2f teaching sessions during an escalating pandemic has the alarming potential to foster OCD-type thought patterns, even for those who have not experienced them before. Not to mention the real potential for causing a relapse 17/

(sorry 'relapse' this is another term I don't like but) for those who are recovering from OCD, & for making things unbearable for those who are currently suffering with OCD. How any learning and 'pedagogical value' can take place under this circumstances seems unfathomable 18/

So far I've focused on cleaning procedures & associated worries bc those are the things I most strongly identify with OCD bc of my particular experience. But there's more. The university management (mine & others) are saying they've made teaching rooms 'covid-safe' 19/

For example, we've been told there are perspex screens behind which TAs can teach without a mask. This flies in the face of new studies that stress the significance of aerosol transmission. A screen does not help that, ventilation & mask-wearing does. If this is 20/

the sort of thing that management means by 'covid-safe' then they have proved their assessment of risk & safety to be untrustworthy, as was also brought up & helpfully explained in the @ucuatdurham meeting yesterday. 21/

OCD feeds on risk. No one - certainly not the employer - should ever get to decide what poses an acceptable level of risk for another person. Nobody. There is a significant risk to ~everyone~ in f2f teaching, & some people will be more medically vulnerable. Some will also be 22/

vulnerable to developing or worsening OCD (these groups of people I refer to here may also overlap!)
And no one should get to determine this risk for someone else, especially when university management are manipulating the category of 'covid-safe' for their own convenience 23/

It is disappointing to see this happen when universities in general & @durham_uni in particular were exemplifying caution & awareness back in March independent of government delay & incompetence. This is certainly not the case any longer. This has all been avoidable. 24/

We're told the SU has campaigned for f2f all summer. But where was the room for teaching staff to enter the discussion? Were the most vulnerable and/or disadvantaged students (eg those doing key work/caring for family) able to join this campaign & make their voices heard? 25/

It is, quite literally, maddening to see f2f teaching being mandated in so many universities & individual depts when there are so many problems.

I wrote this a while ago about OCD - it makes life unbearable. I don't want to go there again. 26/ https://madcovid.wordpress.com/2020/05/11/my-ocd-seeing-red/

Anyway I'll stop now, I hope this thread is helpful in some way. Thank you @ucuatdurham for passing the motion yesterday for opt-out system for f2f teaching, thank you @matilda_jt for encouraging me to write to DUCU about this, & to everyone fighting against this situation FIN/

Oh and btw some of us at Durham only just found out we're being asked to do this YESTERDAY. I've seen other people saying they still haven't been told whether they're expected to teach f2f. Our term starts in just over a week. https://twitter.com/EHopeDoherty/status/1309097944075980803