Canary in the Coal Mine or Canary in the Classroom?
“Mom, why are you doing this?”
A text message I’ve received many times in the past few weeks from my daughter – a millennial whose employer (along with her husband’s) has decided to wait until 2021 before they allow employees back into the workplace. I am a primary caregiver for two octogenarians (one of whom recently suffered a stroke). I am a mother, a sister, an aunt, a daughter, a consultant, and a professor.
I have been “asked” to teach an upcoming course on Persuasion and Influence in a face-to-face classroom on July 6, 2020. During this time of uncertainty, we’re encountering situations we couldn’t have imagined even a few months ago. Situations challenge our beliefs, persistence, and the world we knew before the pandemic.
I’ve been a teacher for most of my life, and for the past 20+ years I’ve been paid for it.
Feelings of Going Into The Classroom
Although my university is adopting the necessary precautions and following state guidelines, the uncontrollable reopening aspects are difficult to anticipate. Our student population is skewed toward global learners, many of whom opt to attend university in the U.S. to experience the social aspects of living abroad.
While we may be able to enforce social distancing, personal hygiene practices, and mask-wearing on campus, we can’t ensure these practices outside of campus.
Many articles characterize the risk of returning to the classroom:
“But as much as I love brick-and-mortar teaching, I shudder at the prospect of teaching in a room filled with asymptomatic superspreaders,” wrote Paul M. Kellermann, Teaching Professor of English at Penn State University.
At the same time, researchers and government entities lay out the fact that reopening our schools is inevitable.
Student PTSD
Safety considerations aside (but of paramount importance), there is also the student experience. When COVID-19 started its rampage worldwide, I taught in a “physical presence” classroom of 75 students. The direct impact on my students tracked the sickness as it spread from Asia to Europe.
Each day, new reports of sick or dying friends and family members flowed into class discussions. Students lived through the trauma of the onset of city, state, and country shutdowns; many of them hastily returned to the safety of their families in their home countries.
Within days, the university programs shifted to online instruction before the end of the term, so students quickly experienced a change in lifestyle and education. During next week’s in-person class, I’ve allotted time in my lesson plan to discuss students’ experiences and re-entry to encourage a psychologically safe classroom that supports a physically safe one.
Preparation
Preparing to teach a course during a pandemic has a subtle yet important impact on pedagogy and learning objectives. My teaching style is driven by movement and use of space in the classroom – all of which must be rethought and rearranged.
Instead of moving among teams of students in the classroom, each interaction comes with a thoughtful 6-feet of distance.
Instead of ideating around a piece of paper taped to a wall, students will take turns adding their thoughts to a page (using their own assigned markers, of course).
A safe classroom requires down-to-the-minute planning to anticipate social distancing and safety measures and extra time needed to do so.
Canary In The Classroom
What can we learn from the experience of cautiously reopening our classrooms? How will this change the way that we teach or the learning experience of our students? There is certainly more to come as we explore this new way of learning.
Pamela Campagna MBA, CMC is the President of BLUE SAGE Consulting, Inc. a certified women-owned consulting firm. Pamela is a board member and chair of the Marketing and Membership Committee of CMC-Global Institute, a virtual global community for professional management consultants.
She is also a Professor of Practice at Hult International Business School, where she has taught leadership, strategy, and management courses since 2014.
