I’ve been teaching college courses online for about ten years now. I started back when there was no Zoom-like interactions, just course modules, dropboxes, and discussion boards. The closest you got to live interaction was email, and the selling point was you could attend college in your pajamas, and at any hour of the day or night. But that was a choice you consciously made, because it was mostly made out of convenience. Not so now.
This semester, I’m teaching what’s known as synchronous classes, live classes with students as mostly avatars, staring back at my computer screen. Since so many classes are being taught online at once, each class can only handle four student cameras at a time. Mostly, staring at those avatars, I feel like I’m talking to myself, and there’s no way of knowing how many students are paying attention to me at once. I try to be engaging, asking for responses, and we do have live class discussions over the readings, short stories, poetry and such, led by student Discussion Leaders, but it’s a poor, poor substitute. By the quality of their assignments, and the constant barrage of emails, and requests for office visits (also virtual), I know that for many students, I’m not getting through.
Why? Because teaching online is NO substitute for classroom interaction. Students, whether in preschool or college, need face-to-face interaction, and the give-and-take that only a live instructor can give to disseminate information. Yes, if you’re highly motivated, online learning is a wonderful alternative. But there’s more to any educational institution than just coursework, and I can go on for hours just what those things are. But in order to get students back into the classroom, which is what everyone wants, we need to get instructors — ALL instructors — vaccinated. There’s an old story, that if a plane is going down, and a mother, with a baby, has access to only one oxygen mask, who gets it, the mother or the baby. The first instinct of the mother would be to put the mask on the baby. But who will care for the baby if the baby dies? So the logical answer is to save the mother, as the baby can’t fend for itself.
The same for the instructors as believe me, no one wants to be back on campus more than we do. Children are the least likely to fall ill if they catch the virus, and college students, if they do, we most likely shrug it off. Not so with the instructors who are more often than not older and more vulnerable. If we value our children’s education as much as we say we do, then please give equal value to the people who spend their lives teaching them who are now at risk. Vaccinate all educators now.
Gwen Jones Writes 