Cultivating a Persona Online

Cultivating a Persona Online

A great deal has been made of the time teachers are spending online these days because they are teaching online, a very unfamiliar task for so many of them.  They are complaining about burn-out and how they can't effective as classroom teachers.  I can understand their difficulties under the circumstances and how they did not ask for this to happen, but I thought it might be worthwhile to explore some of my own experiences and perhaps come up with some conclusions going forward.  My earliest experiences in a discussion group were before the creation of java scripting.  It goes back to my first online Talmud class.  I stumbled upon the link to the class and signed up for it. I remember I was still working on an early Pentium ,maybe 365, computer.  The class required each participant to post a picture of themselves. Every time anyone posted a comment or a question, their picture appeared before their post. I know it sounds almost self-explanatory, but when you are carrying on interactions online with a stranger, it helps to be able to see that person in your mind's eye.  We are visual creatures and we respond to visual stimuli. The same thing pertains to carrying on a relationship with someone strange.  If you think about it, in the old days, when we had penpals, you always wanted to see pictures of this person so you could imagine them in your mind's eye sitting and talking to you.  That experience taught me an important lesson about interactions online. WE all want to "see" the other person.  The second thing I remember is that I began to understand, by the way the others wrote, something about their personality and how they think.  I don't think that I am so insightful but I could read into their words online something about their voice, their approach to things.  I found that that knowledge and introspection continued into my years as an instructor in computer courses.  I always insisted that my course included some online discussions and I knew what. my students were feeling and saying as they wrote.  We all relay more than just plain ideas when we speak, face-to-face.  The third lesson is akin to what I am referring to above.  Each of us are people first and when we are learning, even in an online course, our lives are more than just that one series of interactions.  I began. to relay little things about myself and I know here, some are going to say they don't want their students to know anything about themselves. BUT.....we are people first and my students felt closer to me because I shared a part of my life, my experiences, my feelings.  I became REAL to them. Just think about all the reactions in the press to the death of movie stars and rock stars.  They have become real people to all of us because they have shared something of themselves.  It enabled us to relate to them as people.  Finally, I found that these other little strategies helped me deal with the minutiae of the tasks at hand.  I was able to consider more realistically those who were being genuine and thoughtful in their postings and those who were not.  It took time to cultivate those relationships, but the reality of working online became more natural and more interactive and actually, believe it or not, took me less and less time because I was able to relate to my students as people and if I knew a whack of them had the same issues, I could respond to that rather than one on one.  It is not easy,  I know that.  But you have to cultivate the relationship up front and the more time you spend up front to prime the pump the easier and less time consuming it becomes down the road.  It does get easier and less time consuming and more meaningful.

Changing Nature of Pupil / Teacher Contact & Burnout

Changing Nature of Pupil / Teacher Contact & Burnout

These days, there have been so many different ways in which the issue of teacher burnout has been covered in the professional and popular press.  It was written in the cards that the opening and closing of schools, the sometimes online and sometimes in person nature of instruction, the need for hand washing and social distancing and mask wearing would all become burdens to be borne by the professional educators in our society.  That alone is enough for some teachers to complain about burn-out. However, what no one was bargaining on and few knew to expect was the issue of time on task per student in the act of teaching either online or in the classroom.  The old industrial model of students all being in one class and benefitting from lessons delivered by the teacher at the front cut down on the amount of time each single teacher needed to spend on instruction.  A professional educator would then spend the rest of the time helping those who needed it the most and leaving the best students to do what they had to do without much intervention.  Now, however, the whole idea of age mates being in one classroom and benefitting from whole class instruction has gone out the window.  I just read a brief note about the problem of the numbers of students who are out of step with the assumed ability and knowledge level of any particular class or grade.  That is further proof that what is required today is individualized teaching.  This is only compounded by the need to be online where time-on-task is only increased for the teacher.  When I've talked about this with others, I have commiserated but pointed out that I knew exactly what all this teaching online was going to demand of my colleagues.  I used to drive to Toronto to teach my students at Niagara and then teach and work with them on their skills and knowledge then drive all the way home (a total trip time there and back of almost 5 hours) and only then go online and answer e-mails from my students and read their postings online in the various discussion threads that I had created.  Of course, I didn't need to do that much work.  I didn't need to make my students do anything online.  No one else did. But I told my students that during the lifetime of their career, they were going to need to be able to teach online and that they had better have some idea of what it was all about. I hope that they think of me now when they are working online and realizing that I was wise, yes very wise, to make sure they knew what to do.  Most of my students would be fewer than 12 years into their careers, assuming that they got jobs.  So now, many of them are having to work online with their students, just as I told them they would have to.  This significantly increases their workload but it also makes the learning process, the pupil-teacher ratio of time on task better for learning.  I feel badly for those who were not prepared for what they were going to have to do, but the future is now and it is best these teachers either learn how to do what they have to do for the benefit of their students or they just leave the profession.  It does get easier and now they can visit with their students individually or coach them online instead of everything having to be written so the teaching / learning interactions will only be more productive. Welcome to the real reformation of education in the 21st Century.

Proper Supervision Is the Key

Proper Supervision Is the Key

Don't let this graphic illustration deceive you into believing that I am going to advocate for walking around watching the students in a class or kitchen like a hawk or a spy.  In fact, I believe it ought to be the exact opposite.  From the earliest days when I had students in my library computer lab, I did not believe I had to be watching them like that. I first of all let my students know that I trusted them.  But then I never left the room and I would walk around behind them so I could look over their shoulders and help them if I saw that they were having a problem. Too many teachers position their computers so that the faces of students can be seen but not the screens. I always made sure that I could see the screens and that others could see the screens of each other as well. That way I was more likely to ensure that my students were on task.  Now, we move to the requirement, indeed, the need for students to go online from home because they cannot sit in their classrooms due to the pandemic.  Here again, the first rule of thumb ought to be that you convey to your children that you trust them. You have to make sure that they have a plan of action as to what they are doing online and that they know how to proceed.  But after that, you only need to supervise, pop up beside them periodically to check up. If your students do not know when to expect you, and that you expect them to stay on task, then they will be more likely to do just that.  You put into practice the idea that you are their guide not the side and while you are waiting for a need for help to be expressed, you are. nearby and know what they should be doing and what progress on a task might look like.   Now there is one other issue to deal with that goes along with this. If your students are collaborating, you want to be sure that they are sending and receiving levitate, task-oriented messages.  When we went to server-based networks, all with access to the Internet, the students were assigned email addresses that were corporate, with their names included in the address. That way, we knew they were more likely to correspond legitimately.  No nicknames or personal choices were allowed either.  It is a professional approach to learning FOR THEM in that way.  Too many parents don't necessarily check on the email addresses their kids are using and don't check to see what email messages they are accessing. If they are doing things properly, you are able to spot problems immediately. These are just some of the ways you can assure yourself that your kids are working properly and you can rest knowing that they are more likely to avoid problems.  The key is dialogue and working with them but from a position of trust.   

That Sounds Too Easy

That Sounds Too Easy

I've just come home from a walk in the neighbourhood, which is our custom since the beginning of the pandemic.  I won't even write about how much I crave getting back into a pool which was always my primary source of exercise for years.  The day will come when we can get back in but that's not going to help my aching bones these days.  While I walk, I have CNN on in my ear from my iPhone.  I happened to hear the airing of this commercial which really can be taken completely the wrong way. I know that the United States is a capitalist society, which is entirely fine.  I also know that suckers are born all the time.  This commercial is aimed at just those kinds of suckers.  It promises almost instant solutions for children who are not learning how to read and instant relief to parents struggling with the frustrations of their children who are caught in that spiral of struggling to read and emotional crests up and down because of that struggle.  The commercial really does make it sound too good to be true, because it is.  As a lifelong educator, I know that there are many children who struggle to read for a variety of reasons.  One of course is motivation which won't change because of a visit to a reading clinic.  Children have to want to learn how to read and want to be lifelong readers but they get that desire by watching those around them and being encouraged.  Then they keep to learn and desire goes a long way to overcoming some problems.  But then there are all kinds of other problems that cannot be solved just be one consultation or visit to a clinic.  Some children have perceptual problems, whether sight or hearing, that make it harder for them to pick up sounds and apply then properly. Some children have perceptual problems that form disconnects in their brains with signals that are sensory which become mixed up.  Things like ADHD or Dyslexia can accentuate problems like that.  Then their are a whole host of problems that stem from language learning.  Children from different cultures who are presented with material to read that they have no context for and than makes it that much harder to understand what is being read.  I could go on with a very long list of factors that make learning to read difficult. But many parents are not aware or sophisticated enough to be able to think about these things. All they know is that there is problem.  The advertisement I listened to was exceptionally deceptive and misleading. I pity the poor parent who approaches this company or website and pays for a visit in the hope that one or two visits will solve all their problems, only to learn that they are in for hour after hour of tutoring to correct issues that most frequently the schools are better equipped to help students and their parents solve.