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I am so fucking frustrated with teaching right now.
A colleague of mine today came up with a good analogy...
A colleague of mine today came up with a good analogy...
You're a barber. Your boss has reopened your shop. You have a long line of customers who've been promised top-quality service...
...but no scissors, no razors, no shaver. There's a lawnmower in the corner. "Do your best." (Remember to maintain 2m social distance.)
...but no scissors, no razors, no shaver. There's a lawnmower in the corner. "Do your best." (Remember to maintain 2m social distance.)
You're told "do your best", and you hear the implied "or else".
So: the equipment is unfit for purpose, the safety regulations and the practicalities are mutually exclusive, the customers have been promised heaven and earth, and you're on the hook either way.
So: the equipment is unfit for purpose, the safety regulations and the practicalities are mutually exclusive, the customers have been promised heaven and earth, and you're on the hook either way.
I am told "f2f teaching". Great: online only is *doable*, sure, but it's a much clumsier substitute. This is (pedagogically) good news. It is absolutely necessary for me to be able to read my students' handwritten work!
But I am told that I cannot move from the front desk.
But I am told that I cannot move from the front desk.
Okay, so will my students be provided with cheap graphics tablets, so that they can write to me via computer? No.
Okay, so... can they use the audio-visual equipment? A projector? No.
Can they make a paper airplane out of their work and throw it to me from a 2m distance...?
Okay, so... can they use the audio-visual equipment? A projector? No.
Can they make a paper airplane out of their work and throw it to me from a 2m distance...?
The proposed solution: I should Zoom with my students. Me at the lecture room computer, them on their laptops (in a classroom) or on the uni-provided computers (in an IT room).
Okay. I mean, pretty fucking funny interpretation of "f2f". But fine, whatever, let's do it.
Okay. I mean, pretty fucking funny interpretation of "f2f". But fine, whatever, let's do it.
So, of course, I look for the stylus that I've been promised so that I can write on screen (again, handwriting, yeah?), and it's missing in half the classrooms. (Stolen, lost, who knows. Probably years ago.) In the other half it doesn't work. (Because it's cheap shit.)
No problem. I've brought my own (very expensive, personal) equipment, because we're all making do.
Of course, I can't ask my students to do that, and the IT room computers don't have any of the necessary equipment, but let's be honest, we gave up on handwriting months ago.
Of course, I can't ask my students to do that, and the IT room computers don't have any of the necessary equipment, but let's be honest, we gave up on handwriting months ago.
So, fine. Embarrassed, I have to tell my students "just send me a photo from your phone, or write with your mouse, or something: it's terrible, and I'm so sorry, but it's all we have". Fine. So they do, and we Zoom with each other from within the same room, except...
...except of course we don't. Their computers don't have microphones, all the cameras are broken, the audio feedback is unbearable. The extroverted students are dominating the Zoom call, and the shy, anxious students don't want to share their work with me and 15 others.
Remember, I want nothing more than to walk across the room and just look at their work on paper, but I'm not allowed to for covid reasons.
(I wouldn't be allowed to anyway: some students are self-isolating etc and are *only* present remotely, and parity of experience etc.)
(I wouldn't be allowed to anyway: some students are self-isolating etc and are *only* present remotely, and parity of experience etc.)
And, look, if photographing your work and sharing it with a Zoom call full of students - half of whom you've never met - so that I can attempt to shout critiques of it across the classroom sounds like an awful experience, I'm not going to bullshit you. It is.
But if I try to teach normally, I have to breach all the covid guidelines. If a student is anxious about covid, and is too shy to speak up when I'm breaking all the rules, and they get ill - or even just lose sleep over it! - that's shit too.
So... I put all the people not worried about covid in one classroom and teach them normally, and I put all the other people who are happy to accept bad Zoom teaching in another room...? Of course not: that would create a two-tier teaching system. Discrimination on health grounds.
So, what? What do I do? How do I square this circle and provide the top-quality service that my students have been promised (by managers who'll never see the inside of a classroom or get any of the blame)?
I "do my best". Like I'm told to.
I "do my best". Like I'm told to.
This is before I even get onto the various other departments of my university that - frankly - just haven't done their jobs. Students are still reporting timetable clashes, disappearing classes, etc. Staff are getting locked out of their own centrally timetabled Zoom sessions.
(Who takes the blame for that? I have no control over the whims of the timetable, but I sure as hell get the inbox full of complaints about it.
I dared to email the timetabling office about this to ask them to fix it, and was told off for doing so. My emails are beneath them.)
I dared to email the timetabling office about this to ask them to fix it, and was told off for doing so. My emails are beneath them.)
I'm exhausted, and I'm disappointed, but mostly I'm furious. I worked hard all summer to make this work. I did my bit. My students (and my colleagues and I) had a right to expect better.
PS: I've just opened my email inbox to find an email from late last night informing me - and presumably my students - that my 12pm class today is cancelled.
It isn't, of course. This is just another bug. But it's one that'll probably lose me a few students.
It isn't, of course. This is just another bug. But it's one that'll probably lose me a few students.
