Editor's Letter: “I miss the noise at school!”

“I miss the noise at school!”

Something I never thought I would say.

My last day of teaching was a bit of an anti-climax. Prior to the schools closing nationwide, our school was shut down due to a parent who was tested positive for COVID-19. During the last week, I had to do handovers, get everything ready for my replacement and make sure that my class was on track with their work. The school was like a ghost town. No one was there. At least I got to walk out of the building on the last day of term with no marking, which was an absolute bonus. With my class plant under my arm, I looked back and just thought about this bizarre situation we find ourselves in.

One of the many reasons why I love teaching is definitely the interaction and human connection. If you take kids out of school, it’s just an empty shell. From each moment I walked into school, it started. A haasbekkie grade 1 kid would greets me. The friendly secretaries would have a quick skinder and multi-task whilse dealing with parents at 7 am. There would be that quick cup of tea in the staffroom before school started and, of course, that shared frustration that bonds teachers for life - another morning meeting that could’ve been an email. And this is all before the actual teaching would start, when you see the happy faces in front of you, ready to learn! Okay, maybe it sounds like a bit of a teaching Utopia, but that is how I want to remember it!

Teaching in a tiny primary school building was at first an assault on my senses. In high school, where I was teaching before the move down to grade 5, the kids spoke in an “inside voice”, they didn't run down the corridors, and there was no happy group singing - except for anthems and the school songs. And suddenly, during remote teaching, it was back to that, just when I got used to the happy noise around me! No soul.

What I realised from this current experience is that teachers are not really built for remote teaching. Yes, we have stepped up and created fantastic solutions for our kids to continue learning. Yes, we have gone beyond what anyone could have imagined by the way in which we are supporting our kids. But teaching remotely, especially as a necessity, is more exhausting than being in class with our learners. My (very unscientific) theory is that teachers are able to do so much at school, and give so much of themselves every day, because their energy is constantly being

replenished by the kids that surrounded them. It’s this energy that we feed off that keeps our passion alive.

Nothing beats that 2-minute conversation with a child about a topic that they find interesting, even though you may not have any clue what they were talking about. For me, that was anything to do with sport; I’m a choir kid, sorry! Seeing a learner just get something in realtime, or even ask a silly question (maybe intentionally to make the entire class burst out in laughter) - these are some of the things that cannot easily be replicated online. If this situation continues, we must make time for these moments in our daily remote teaching routines to keep the connections going. It can’t just be all work and no play.

On that note, for this edition of the Teacha! Magazine, we have decided to focus on three different aspects of home (remote) learning. The teacher experience, tech solutions that are available and easy to use and parent perspectives of how the lockdown has changed their day-to-day lives. I also added a personal piece, explaining what happened when we all of a sudden had to close our school and teach remotely (p. 8), and Fiona Beal gives insight and excellent tips to get started with remote teaching (p. 11).

A huge thank you to Isabel Tarling for contributing two excellent lists of online resources for English and Maths. These will definitely help you if you’re not too sure what’s out there. Juffer from My Klaskamer always has excellent, practical ideas for foundation phase teachers and parents and you can read more about them on page 14.

Ex-teacher, Emme Scholtz, runs through a day at home with her toddlers and uses every opportunity as a learning opportunity. Pamela Diesel, teacher and mother, speaks about the importance of routine to not only keep us sane, but to keep things going - I cannot imagine how tough it must be to teach your own children at home and to teach your classes remotely. Hats off to all of the teachers in South Africa!

As always, we invite teachers from all over South Africa to share their ideas and innovations, tips and tricks and anything else worth sharing with us. Email us your suggestions, contributions or letters to editor@teacha.co.za.