On Being a Teacher in the Pandemic

I enter my ‘Classroom’, but I’m not going to stay there for too long. I’m only there to “Share something with my class” – the “Joining info” to let them enter the “Meeting” I’ve started on Meet. I toggle buttons to move back to the “Meeting” and wait for the students to arrive so that I can “Admit” them in.

I miss the luxury of having students waiting for me to arrive.

They arrive in one’s and two’s, but I can’t see or hear them – their cameras and microphones are turned off in the new classroom etiquette, and I won’t hear them talk until I invite them to do so by wishing them “Good morning, students!”.

I miss hearing their loud chorus of “Good Morning, Ma’am” that is capable of pushing everything beyond that moment from my mind.

I miss being able to smile at them and having them smile back, creating an infectious high energy vibe. 

I miss the unconscious scan my eyes and 6^th or 7^th sense would run over the class to measure their energy and interest level so that I knew how to amp up or down my pace of teaching

Some students take time to arrive. It’s no longer the “I missed the bus” or “I got stuck in a traffic jam” excuses. The ‘rate-limiting-step’ has morphed – it’s the speed of their mobile network service provider that’s the culprit for their delay.

Three minutes into the “Meeting”, about 80% of the class is in, so I decide it’s time to “Present Now” and choose “Present a Window” as I unmute my microphone and wish the class “Good Morning”. A few return wishes reach my ears. I don’t “Turn on my camera” because of various reasons that range from ‘no dress code for teaching from home’ to ‘family member dashing into and out of the bathroom nearby’. But the most important reason for not enabling video is that connectivity is always more stable with the video off.

I miss having my class look at me while I’m teaching. I wonder if they miss it too, and wonder if the energy in my voice is enough to sustain them through the hour. I pray it will suffice.

I continue to explain what is there in my presentation. I’ve sat up till midnight of the previous day to make sure that along with the text, my presentation contains diagrams and tables and graphs to help the students understand the topic better. I ask questions in between to make sure that they have understood what I’m explaining.

I miss being able to judge my students’ understanding – or lack of it – from a mere glance at their facial expressions.

I toggle between parts of the presentation as I go back and forth to emphasize an earlier point to explain the present one. I try to keep each slide in place for at least half a minute to make sure that all students – even the ones with a slow network – are able to see what I’m talking about.

I miss the way I used to walk from one side to another to connect the concepts I’ve explained by writing on the blackboard. 

Which reminds me – I miss my chalk piece and duster, too. 

I miss the dust of the ‘dustless’ chalk getting into my eyes when I rub the board. 

I miss the polka dot spray the white dust created on my shoulders. 

I miss having to wash my hands free of the calcium carbonate (instead of the SARS-CoV-2 I’m now trying to keep away).

After about 48 minutes of class, I decide to stop. When I myself cannot sustain talking for an hour, how can I expect my students to listen for so long? I check if they have any doubts. I ask if they have received the notes I sent. I tell them about some PDFs and links I’ll be sharing after the class. And finally, I say, “Let’s close today’s class” and give them permission to “Leave”. There’s a smattering of “Thank you, Ma’am”s that I hear as I click the red telephone icon to myself “Leave” the “Meeting”.

I miss the days when I’d overstay my time in class because we were discussing something important about a problem the students faced.

I miss the impromptu activities and games I’d sometimes have them play to learn an important life skill because either of us was too bored to study heavy-duty pharmacy syllabus.

We’re only teaching theory now in our online classes. Practical experiments will be done whenever regular college starts.

I’ve been missing the smell of chemicals that would cling to me after a lab session. 

I’ve even begun to miss the headache that would result after hours of non-stop peering about three times per microscope multiplied by 20 microscopes, repeated thrice a week. 

The only headaches I have now come from staring at a screen that connects and yet separates me from my students.

I’ve just begun teaching a new subject - Pharmaceutical Microbiology. And thanks to what I’m learning anew, as I write this blog, I realize that as a teacher, I’m not the strict autotroph I thought I was. I can’t make all of my own energy – I need to draw quite a bit of it from the emotional connection that grows as I interact day in and out, face-to-face, with my students.

On this Teacher’s Day, I’d like to thank all the students I’ve taught in all these 20 years before the pandemic. You’re the ones who made it a most memorable journey for me, and those memories will always stay special.

To the students I’m now teaching through a virtual medium, thank you for your cooperation, and hopefully, we’ll be able to connect better by the time we’re through this semester.