The story so far: The world was coming to an end or so it seemed.
A mist was settling uncomfortably and uncontrollably like someone’s grandmama being swallowed into the recesses of her own upholstered settee as she perches herself with a hot cuppa. Meanwhile, Newsreaders declared war on sanity; Oracles were pronouncing doomsday; Doctors and healthcare workers metamorphosed into the heroes we needed, not the ones we deserved, and politicians were doing what politicians do – exist!
And then, of course, there were teachers. Those unblemished souls, the practitioners of propriety, the avengers of imbecility, the protectors of the holy grail of wisdom. Teachers, who, armed with a Spartan-like resolve prepared for the inevitable – Change!
And much do we love change. Change, the comb that life offers when a man is bald. Change, like doing the foxtrot on one foot. And so it was with teachers; dragged into nightmares down data street, seemingly forced into a straitjacket while being asked to thrive in territories unknown. Territories that were euphemistically, ironically and quite like the wolf in sheep’s clothing titled ‘TEAMS’!
Forgive me, for I walk around in hot porridge. For teachers are not my protagonists. Teachers of English are! It is here that I must interject with a dose of desperate metafiction. I promise, henceforth, to offer you dumplings instead of flowers and strip the rest of this story of the excesses of a teacher of English who has hitherto been deprived of an audience.
Where were we? Yes, teachers of English. Those misunderstood guardians of grammar who were thrust into a world unknown; where students were mere initials trapped in a grey cell. Students, who could now, at the prompt of a solitary key, mute the very digital existence of the teacher quite like flies to wanton boys.
The world was coming to an end. Our world was coming to an end.
Learners lured by the trappings of social media, pay-per view movie sites, Netflix and online games were now finally moving on from a relationship that had long begun to sink into irrelevancy.
We had to reinvent ourselves. And fast. We were on the clock. We had to make English cool again!
So we did what we have always done when faced with insuperable odds: pedaled in yogurt for a while as we suffered from paralysis by analysis, deigned to discuss data (what sorcery is that?), and drank coffee – heavenly manna and our fountain of youth, nay, sanity. But just as the sun shone, without any alternative, the next day and the next, so did we, teachers of English decide that this could not possibly go on.
The last dregs of our bitterness coincided with the lockdown now in its full might. And then without warning, almost audaciously, the entire posse of teachers managed to deconstruct data. That was the first step. The second was to coerce every single learner to pass through the gates of Lexile tests. More data.
The third was to experiment with this new landscape – Microsoft Teams. And suddenly, before the sun rose and sank 7 times, our protagonists managed to navigate through every nook and corner that Teams had to offer – from One Note to Differentiation through the creation of multiple channels, assignments, Whiteboards and of course, background filters. We even learnt how to position our cameras strategically thereby hiding the bowl of nachos that graced our tables during collaborative meetings.
Once these basics were traversed, teachers started to push the frontier. Events were planned. Guests were invited and students were mobilized like never before. Mr. Frank Dullaghan indulged in a tête-à-tête on poetry, Academicians from far and wide engaged in intellectual discourse on the relevance of Shakespeare in a post-Covid world, interviews were conducted with multiple personalities. Podcasts, Vodcasts and an explosion of publications followed. Impressed? We were just warming up.
We orchestrated online elocutions and plays. We managed to conduct the biggest Global Debate competition in the history of our school; conducted and participated in Webinars and still found the time to engage in professional development activities.
We dabbled in the serious arts as well. New Reading Policies were conceptualized, old Academic Honesty policies were revisited and updated. Learners were prepared for International Benchmark tests and proved to be a real ASSET to the department wall of achievements.
Once again, we had crossed the salt desert of uncertainty. Once again, we rose above mediocrity. Once again, we did not settle. Every single teacher, guardians of grammar, practitioners of propriety, with a Spartan-like resolve, endured this onslaught of change and rose from the ashes as change-makers. We were teachers no more. We are learners and proud!
Fast forward one year.
The story now: The world is still reeling. Only this time we are prepared.
By Sheldon John Dias
