#lockdown is time to be WITH and not VERSUS the teachers

Teachers are now the one big constant in the lives of our children. We need to rally around the teaching community even more than earlier. Much like how the society needs to be with the health workers –  the school leaders, management and parents need to be with their teachers. Now and through the year as it is looking at lockdowns, staggered re-opening, online classrooms, e-assessments and students growing up in a world that has shifted within a few weeks for them to an entirely new paradigm.

Here are my top 3 suggestions to support teachers:

1. Walk away from policies and mandates: Give time and choice to your teachers to discover the online platform they are most comfortable to work on. Adopt a few until such time each of them gets used to what they would like to work on and teach with. If it means that the school will use several different platforms for transacting the learning for some time or for all the time, so be it. It is similar to teachers having their own preferred style of conducting learning in classrooms. It not only depends on their subject but also on their personality type and the age group and dynamics of their students. Not every online learning platform is suitable to everyone and perhaps not the designated learning management system that has been picked up by the school management. Keep that platform for uploading administrative details and assessments as per school mandate but not for conducting lessons online.

The readiness of each teacher and the adoption of an e-learning platform will have a learning curve. Now is not the time to force that. Neither is it the time to adhere to the policies of submitting lesson plan by a particular day of the week in a particular format or finishing a particular module within certain number of hours. When given a choice to the teachers to figure what works best for their subject or for them and their students without the additional stress of a mandate or a policy, they will be able to deal with their own re-skilling and learning better. Trust them.

2. Support and encourage as a routine: If you are using a conferencing or meeting tool that you think would work for your child’s teacher, please volunteer as a parent to handhold the teachers into the platform. Let them try it out and figure if they are comfortable using it. Trouble shoot for them. Curate a list of platforms that might be useful for them to try. Curate videos or any other resource that they can use for their lessons. Go over your child’s curriculum for the year and discuss with the teacher how you can offer your assistance. Be with your child if you may while s/he is taking an online lesson but do not hover to critique the ways.

Teacher is new to this method, new to managing class dynamics online, new to getting cues from the children whether they have the attention of each student during the class or for that matter how much the learning is happening without the physical cues s/he was used to.

Administrators and school leadership have to bear in mind to schedule meetings one on one and/or in a group to offer support and encourage each member in their tryst to learn and figuring out. They are fixing their plane while flying it! It comes with its own anxieties. While at it, do remember to take time and take care of yourselves. You do not know exactly how to lead either in these times. You are also a learner.

3. Communicate with grace: I can’t emphasise enough how much acting with grace is important at this time than any other. Each one of us is anxious with the uncertainties. Each one is grappling with our own fallibilities. Some of us are succeeding better than some other given our own individual unique physical, emotional, financial and family circumstances. Some days are better than the others, some days are worse. It was so in 2019 also but is accentuated in 2020 and is not looking to go away in a hurry. Keep your grace in communications with teachers. They will surprise you with their commitment.

What are the LMS platforms you have tried out? What has worked for you? What would you suggest to your colleagues, peers, fellow parents? Please share with me and the readers. Please subscribe with your email for getting articles in your mail.