COVID Lesson #3
I’ve written elsewhere about boundaries. (Here. Here. Here. Here.) Suffice it to say, healthy boundaries are
super important.
Here’s a good article on boundaries in the workplace and at home just in case you need another reminder.
(Note: I would change the rule “Try not to use the word ‘no’” to “State what you’re willing to do and not willing to do.” I’m actually a pretty big fan of the word “no” and would never want to discourage anyone from saying it.)
What do boundaries have to do with my COVID Lesson #3? It’s this:
Students have boundaries, too.
Kind of a crazy revelation for someone who specializes in boundary-setting and -respecting!! (That would be me.)
My focus has been on teachers’ boundaries. Of course I care about students’ boundaries, but, in a classroom or a schoolhouse, they are the flip side of teachers’ boundaries. Respecting your own boundaries kind of automatically establishes others’ (whether they like it or not).
What I’m thinking about here is the common practice among students of
turning off their screens
during online synchronous class meetings.
Up to now I’ve thought about this phenomenon in purely practical terms. Students turn off their screens when they don’t want everyone to see their kitchens or bedrooms. Students turn off their screens when they’re playing video games or when they’re not actually attending class.
Weirdly, I’ve never thought about turned-off screens as emotional and relational data before.
That is, as symptoms of an underlying need, as a
boldly broadcast message
about the student’s relationship to school and learning.
As information a teacher can use rather than despair about.
So what might a teacher do with a turned-off video screen?
Some suggestions:
Note your assumptions. Then put them away.
Ask individual students about their turned-off screens. Why do they do it? How should you the teacher interpret it? That is, gather more data.
Talk to your classes about the relative drawbacks and benefits of turned-off screens. Come up together with rules that satisfy students’ boundary needs and ensure learning. That is, agree on some liberating constraints.
Be ready to hear bad news. Like “I’m bored” or “I can’t stay focused” or “I didn’t do the homework.” (If your students are admitting such things, you are on the right track.) Then work together with your students to plan what to do with their experiences. Be sure to consider shifting in your seat, changing your approach to instruction, reflecting on what matters, going whole hog on student-centered teaching (if you haven’t already).
I am intrigued by students who are taking advantage of the opportunity COVID has provided to draw a firm, undeniable, inarguable boundary between themselves and school. To offer data about the state of their minds and bodies.
Of course, teachers cannot do anything about many of these states. But they can wonder what students’ screens mean about those students’ relationship to school and the learning activities they are being asked to do. And teachers can make informed changes — that is, changes that are informed by students’ explanations of the data they’re offering — that might make learning and teaching more effective and more fun.
As you know, I am an
undying advocate
of fun.
Mantra: Vaccines can’t come fast enough! (So we can have fun in person, of course.)