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Standing through the Storm

Salam Y. Sayagha

    I was once proud to say that I am a teacher. Although a teacher’s salary isn’t satisfactory, the moral reward a dedicated teacher gets from students makes him/her feel worth living. When I started teaching, I was a young 19 year-old with high dreams of a peaceful world. I thought that through teaching, I would be able to change the Universe. Well, of course, I didn’t. I remain to be a hard working educator with a growing passion towards her young pupils, which may touch some, but not to a limit that can change the world.
    Well, I was once able to say everything was going just fine. I learned to adapt to changes, reply to emails, vary my methods of teaching, utilize new approaches, deal with difficult students, manage relationships with parents, modify assessment procedures etc., but what other teachers and I, as well as most people on planet Earth, didn’t expect, was the spread of the Corona Virus, which escalated our struggles. Now, we have to learn new methods which personally I don’t mind at all, but it has exerted tons of stress upon us and our already inflated schedules.
    We are expected to utilize new tools that were always there, though we never had the time to explore. Sometimes, I can hear the compressed periods of time we had in the pounding of my heart and my ears, or even worse; it attacks my peaceful dreams in which I wake up and run to my laptop as if followed by hundreds of hooligans in a chaotic football play-ground. You may think, “Common stuff”; it’s just that this lady is exaggerating over here. Believe me: I am not.
    Next we had to join meetings using virtual classes to explain new lessons. How could we possibly convince students who attend classes with us that Google Classroom could replace the physical setting they are used to?
    Again we had to prepare recorded PowerPoints and post them on stream on their Google class. Then we had to use “Zoom” or “Google Meet” (which both sides hadn’t used before!) to explain a lesson, answer questions, or solve activities. Later we would post recorded meetings to their virtual classes for everybody to watch.
    One more thing was learning to create quizzes via Google Forms. Creating quizzes alone from scratch is difficult, so imagine the struggles of designing it online. We had to access the setting, choose the proper criterion, for example, “to submit only once”, “not to release grades directly”, or “to see missing questions.” Moreover, we had to take the exam by ourselves to test the time needed, the clarity of questions, and the difficulty.
    Also, we have to correct the assignments. I mean, each class has at least 40 students. We have to post the assignment, give precise instructions including due time. Then we have to add the detailed rubrics. It’s different than correcting papers, for it is more time consuming.
    In addition, we have to motivate students to participate by asking questions on stream, and promising them extra grades for their valued work. Replying and sending emails is another meticulous issue. We have to deal with over 100 emails per day. Some need special attention, others diplomacy.
    The humanitarian stress is a completely different story. We know that our learners are passing through various struggles. The devastating economic crisis, which countries all over the world are experiencing, is reaching a cliff in our small country, in addition to the poor Internet connection and electricity problems that both conspire to corrupt our already overwhelming tasks.
    Due to this dilemma, we lost our sense of time. Other than the fact of us being in quarantine, we have to stay close to our phones and laptops, for we never know when duty calls. We have to be on stand-by mode more than 12 hours a day. Anytime an email or an instant message peeps, we have to be prepared to comply.
    However, the pros are many. I learned many things in this short period of time, which I would have never attempted to delve if we hadn’t been attacked by this merciless virus. My new most faithful partner is Google Engine. Simply put: I can’t but say “Hats off”.
    Google Tools are LIFE SAVIORS! For instance, Google Drive, which saves important documents; Google Docs, which aids in creating multiple choice questions; and not to forget Meet, which proved to be indispensible for virtual classes.
     We have developed such a beautiful team spirit. We are nine university campuses which follow a detailed and organized system. In each campus there is a course leader who is responsible to follow up with a team to report and coordinate with a general course coordinator. For instance, I teach communication skills in one of them. For this spring semester, there were six sections. All of us have the same objectives and outcomes. The team spirit that all instructors displayed through this newly un-trodden situation proves that “Union Is Power”. We have got to know each other better, do each other’s piece of work, explain details, illustrate using videos and share screen shots.
    Life is full of challenges. Despite the hectic experiences we are going through, life would have no meaning, be it monotonous. Online teaching has been there since years. Some people prefer it, but it would be their choice, not something imposed on them. Yet we had no choice, and we had to unfold every single minute. Learning passes through stages. It is what I consider an essential part of humans’ evolution, but it would have been most welcomed if it were piece by piece, not a waterfall that is attacking a person under all circumstances, whether conscious or not. I had to stand still accepting, diving, and striving till the storm settles down.

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