Facts not Fear: Teaching in a time of Crisis
This blog post is inspired by the following article: Letter from Toronto: An Infectious Diseases Specialist Reflects on COVID-19
When a crisis happens we go into survival mode. We can focus on nothing more than survival. How are we going to get through today? Many times does the worried mind kick-in and start to think about the unknown future, imagining the worse scenarios.
What is going to happen?
We have entered a time of crisis on earth with COVID-19. People are panicking and catastrophizing and for a reason. This pandemic is real and it will affect all of our lives, directly or indirectly. It already has.
My brain has been working non-stop trying to figure out ways to teach during this time of crisis. I can’t help but think of how lucky we are to have technology as educators, and have the ability to teach remotely to keep in touch with our students and to the outside world. With technology, we can follow current events as they unfold as this pandemic brings our world into lockdown. On the flip side, technology is also causing widespread panic and fear around the world.
What can we learn from this crisis and grow stronger?
We are Resilient.
Growth happens out of inspiration or desperation. We desperately need innovation and creativity to be able to create new ways to teach our students. The world has changed so drastically in a very short time and will continue to change. We must have the ability to adapt and create new ways to teach our students. How do we engage from afar?
How and what do we teach in a time of crisis?
I can’t help but think that this changing landscape is an opportunity to engage in multiliteracies and different ways of teaching. We must use technology and engage our learners from afar. It is all about perspective.
This is both a crisis and an opportunity to teach and learn and grow more resilient as a species. An infection specialist in Toronto wrote this:
“I implore you all. Temper fear with reason, panic with patience and uncertainty with education. We have an opportunity to learn a great deal about health hygiene and limiting the spread of innumerable transmissible diseases in our society. Let’s meet this challenge together in the best spirit of compassion for others, patience, and above all, an unfailing effort to seek truth, facts, and knowledge as opposed to conjecture, speculation and catastrophizing.”
This is an opportunity to learn, and an opportunity to teach. What are the messages we want to convey? What are the lessons that we can learn from this crisis? How can we grow closer as people as we are being told to stay away from each other?
Some people will try to monetize the situation. Some people will try to help. Others will panic and freeze in fear. What do we want to teach our students?
This is a perfect opportunity to find a different way to teach. With every crisis comes innovation and growth. Some people will try to monetize this opportunity and take advantage. Others will step out and try to help. We can focus on the panic, the fear, the uncertainty of the future, or we can use this as an opportunity to teach altruism, to learn how to find real facts, and focus on innovation and creativity to improve the situation.
As much as this pandemic is creating separation it reminds us of the effect we have on each other. Your health may be fine but you could pass the virus on to someone else that is compromised.
We are all in this together.
Nothing reminds us more of this than in a time of crisis. We must be the helpers, and look for the helpers and focus on what we can do to help our students become more resilient and mindful and empathetic to the needs of others.
This is multimodal teaching at it’s finest. Instead of focusing on what we can’t control, we can find the tools we have at our disposal and be innovative and creative and adapt and grow. The darkest times of my life have taught me my greatest lessons and have helped me to evolve as a person. Unfortunately, that growth is only seen in hindsight.
The world needs us to strap on our brave boots, and put on our thinking caps and take this opportunity to learn and grow and adapt to our new reality. As much as “specialist” attempt to predict the future, nobody can. We must use what we have, to do what we can at this moment and use creativity and technology to create new ways to teach. It is an opportunity for innovation and inquiry so we can continue to teach our students about mindfulness and altruism.
And flexibility.
And adaptability.
And resilience.
One of the fundamental goals of a pedagogy of multiliteracies is to create the conditions for learning that support the growth of a person who is comfortable with themselves as well as being flexible enough to collaborate and negotiate with others who are different from themselves in order to forge a common interest (Cope and Kalantzis 2009).
This too shall pass, and one day we will look back and see how much the world has grown because of this crisis. This is an opportunity to teach. Let’s unite as educators, and do what we can to teach our students how to grow from this crisis and to work together to find solutions
We might not be able to hug to show that we care, but we can take action and create an opportunity to show our students that we care, and teach them how to hold each other in their hearts.
This too shall pass. Everything is going to be O.K.
References
Multiliteracies: New Literacies, New Learning:
http://blogs.ubc.ca/lled3602015/files/2015/08/CopeKalantzis_Multiliteracies.pdf