Tag: distance learning

Portly Movie Review: Teacher (2019)

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Given the unprecedented Age of The Virus we’re all living in, and the changes it’s brought to teaching and learning, I’ve been dedicating more and more blog posts to the subject of education.  Like NEO’s recent post “National Lineman’s Day” (the proprietor of Nebraska Energy Observer has electricity in his blood), it’s only natural that I’d keep coming back to my profession as a source of blog material.

Similarly, in entertainment I’m often drawn to films about teaching.  Like pretty much every other teacher, Dead Poets Society left a pretty strong imprint on me (and my students used to call me “Captain,” years ago, though I doubt many would stand on their desks for me), and School of Rock directly shaped my approach to teaching music (indeed, Jack Black deserves the credit—or blame—for my musical personae).  Frank McCourt’s memoirs of teaching, Teacher Man, also inspired me to enter the profession.

So last night, while casting about for some quarantine entertainment, I stumbled upon the psychological thriller/after-school drama Teacher (you can stream it on RedBox for $2.15).  It’s a 2019 film about a nebbish English teacher at a critical juncture in his personal life and career, who is also dealing with intense bullying of two of his nerdy students.  He then decides to take matters into his own hands with some vigilante justice.

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The Learning Bug

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Well, Spring Break has come to a close, with distance learning, it doesn’t quite feel the same, for both good and ill.  At about the time of this writing (shortly after 8:30 AM EST), I’d be about twenty minutes into an AP US History class under normal circumstances.  Instead, I’m sipping coffee and grading student responses to a pre-recorded lecture (on George F. Kennan’s containment policy) as they roll in.

I’ve found that, personally, I’m far more productive and focused since the transition to distance learning.  The incentives are in place for me to be so, in that I can just laser-focus in on building out online versions of my classes.  I’ve also been adjunct teaching online for a local technical college for about five years now, so I’ve gotten good at the management side of it.  Indeed, most of distance learning, after the creation of the actual content, is shepherding students through it.

That’s the other key to my productivity:  I know that the more idiot-proof and user-friendly I make the process, the less confusion for the students.  That also makes for less work for me on the back-end, which requires a good bit of planning and work on the front-end.  I pretty much stay at my computer from about 7:30 AM to 3:30 or 4 PM EST most days, so I can facilitate any student queries as they arrive, but the workflow is more flexible—instead of being locked-in to a series of hour-long performances, I’m able to complete tasks in a more organic fashion.

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Richard Weaver in the Age of The Virus

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In the Age of The Virus, we’re beginning to reevaluate the way we live.  I’ve written quite a bit about distance learning, and photog has a piece up on his blog predicting a larger shift to remote work.  That transition would threaten micromanaging middle managers everywhere, though, and one doesn’t become a micromanaging middle manager without a knack of occupational self-preservation.

I’ve also been interested in the potential cultural impact.  Already there seems to be a minor revival in interest in gardening.  Part of that is prudent:  we need to have some food to fall back on should the supply chains face further disruption.

But I also suspect some of it is spiritual.  Modern man has become divorced from his roots in the soil—in Creation.  Modernity has liberated us from the constant fear of want, but that liberation came with a price:  we traded the liberty of the soil for the chains of comfort.  Growing a little vegetable garden, however meager, is a way to reconnect with the land, and with the beauty of God’s Creation.

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Phone it in Friday X: Coronavirus Conundrum, Part III: Working from Home

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Well, another week of distance learning is in the books (nearly), and it seems folks are settling into an uncertain new normal as The Virus—what I’ve taken to calling the coronavirus (or COVID-19, to your cool kids)—continues to spread its invisible tentacles.

I personally have enjoyed the transition to distance learning, though I wish it were under rosier circumstances, obviously.  It’s been stimulating to solve the puzzle of moving instruction online, and while I think I’m actually working harder and longer most days, I am far more refreshed.  Being able to wake up at 7:30 AM and shuffling to the computer with some coffee is much more pleasant than my typically frantic morning routine, with both starts earlier and is more hectic.  It’s also nice knowing that, once 3:30 or 4 PM hit, I am done, if I wish to be.

Naturally, I realize many Americans don’t have this luxury—they’re either in essential jobs that require them to risk constant interactions with other people, or they’re in non-essential work that can’t simply move to the Internet, so they find themselves out of work.  My heart goes out to both groups.  The real heroes of this situation are the garbage men, nurses, doctors, utility workers, cooks, plumbers, and the rest that soldier on.

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The Boogie Woogie Flu

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Don’t let the title of today’s post fool you:  I’m not going to write about the coronavirus today.  I’m actually enjoying the relative freedom and flexibility of distance education, sipping car dealership coffee while I wait for my 2017 Nissan Versa Note to get a transmission flush and a belt and some wheel bearings replaced, all with appropriate social distance between me and the other people getting their cars fixed.

But in these plague-riddled times, I couldn’t resist this charming little Quora post about another, funkier plague:  the Strasbourg “Dancing Plague” of 1518.  Not that there’s anything charming about dancing yourself to hell, but it sounds a lot more fun than cloistering alone in your house for two weeks.

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Lazy Sunday LIV: Coronavirus

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It was inevitable—a Lazy Sunday dedicated to the coronavirus.  This may end up being a “Part I,” depending on what happens over the next few weeks, but I’m planning on shifting away from corona talk for awhile.  There are bigger and better things in life than a Chinese biological weapon and/or Chinese culinary disaster-turned-virus.

I’ve been trying to make the most of a generally bad situation.  It’s springtime in South Carolina, so for about two weeks, we’ll enjoy pleasantly mild weather before the oppressive heat of summer hits.  Z Man has an excellent, optimistic post up today about “Springtime In The Pandemic“; it’s a must-read, and follows some of my own ideas about the possible cultural consequences of everyone being at home and resuming more traditional roles.

So this Lazy Sunday, it’s time to look back at my various posts on the dreaded virus:

  • “Phone it in Friday VIII: Coronavirus Conundrum” & “Phone it in Friday IX: Coronavirus Conundrum, Part II: Attack of the Virus” – What a difference a week makes!  Between these two posts, I went from writing off the coronavirus as a bad strain of flu to being much more concerned.  Even since the second installment here, though, I’ve come to reassess the situation again. How much of this shutdown is necessary to stem the spread of the virus, and how much of it is the result of panicked media reporting?  I think it’s possible it’s a threat and the threat is overblown.  We’ll see next week, when this fifteen-day experiment in social isolation has run its course—or gets renewed.
  • “SubscribeStar Saturday: Coronavirus Prepping” – When I wrote this post on 7 March 2020, I still thought the coronavirus’s threat was remote, but I was concerned about the disruption to supply chains.  I detailed my steps for preparing for the possibility of quarantines and/or shortages.  Fortunately, it seems that now grocers are catching up, and unless you’re looking for toilet paper, you can largely find what you need.
  • “High-Tech Agrarianism” – This essay explored an idea I’ve been kicking around for awhile, but that takes on new urgency in the Age of Corona:  what if we combined small-scale agriculture with high technology?  Using our lawns to grow grass seems like a waste of the land and of the effort to maintain it.  What if we applied the effort of mowing and weeding to growing easy-to-maintain crops?  In our normal lives, people don’t have the time, but as we’re shifting more to telecommuting and distance learning, it seems like we’d all be able to spend a bit more time in the garden.
  • “The Revival of Traditionalism?” – In line with the previous post, this piece explored the social and cultural impact of the coronavirus on gender roles.  It was vindicating to see one of the greats write on a similar topic this morning.  The upshot to this whole forced shutdown is that we’re really reevaluating what truly matters in life, as I opined about at length above.

Well, that does it for now.  Stay safe, wash your hands, and God Bless!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Distance Learning Reflections, Week One Review

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

The first week of distance learning is in the books.  I wrote a bit earlier in the week about the transition to it, as well as some first day reflections.

While it’s beneficial for many students, especially younger ones, to have direct, hands-on instruction, it seems that students are adjusting fairly well to the transition.  From an instruction perspective, it streamlines content delivery, and helps put it in a form that most of us consume anyway—via video.

With one week in the books, I thought it would be worthwhile to share some reflections about this hasty, sudden experiment in distance learning.

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The Revival of Traditionalism?

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Milo Yiannopoulos posted a screen shot yesterday of an essay from The Atlantic reading “How the Coronavirus Will Send Us Back to the 1950s” (the piece, by Helen Lewis, is now called “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism“—a silver lining to this pandemic, I suppose).  His caption reads, “HOLY SH[*]T YES PLEASE[.]”

The Lewis piece is the usual feminist hand-wringing about the disparate impact of the coronavirus on women.  Feminists always find a way to make global catastrophes about them, and not about everyone who is truly suffering.  The attitude seems to be, “yes, yes, people will die, but why do I have to make any sacrifices or trade-offs for the people I ostensibly love?”

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Reflections on Distance Learning, Day One

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The first day of distance learning is officially in the books.  I promise that this topic will not be the only one I write about for the next two weeks, but I am going to give updates periodically.

Being the first day, it was certainly the busiest.  Yesterday students came to school in the morning to collect whatever materials they may need for the next two week, and teachers spent the day buzzing away at recorded lectures, digital lesson plans, etc., so we’d be ready to hit the ground running at eight o’clock this morning.

A great deal of teaching is staying one or two days ahead of the students, especially when you’re first starting out.  I had a bit of that sensation—the first-year teacher drowning under a Herculean load of preps—yesterday and today, but where I’ve been lecturing on US History and Government for so long, I can riff almost effortlessly with just a few cues from my well-worn lecture slides.

Prepping for Music, ironically, has been the most difficult.  We’re using Google Meet to livestream and record lessons, which makes it pretty easy to record audio while also sharing slides with students.  With my two Music classes, though, I had to get a little creative.

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Transitioning to Distance Learning

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Well, this coronavirus situation is truly shutting everything down.  South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has shut down all public schools in the State for the rest of the month, which means my little private school is transitioning to distance learning today.  Students are coming in from 8 AM to noon to pick up whatever they need, and then we’re hitting the ground running with distance/remote learning tomorrow.

So far, everyone’s being surprisingly calm about it.  The students are probably anticipating a two-week holiday where they can blow off their work.  They’re in for a mildly rude awakening.  Part of that collective teenage instinct is probably correct:  it’s not going to be nearly as rigorous (or draining) as face-to-face classroom instruction.  But it’s not going to be two weeks of goofing off, either.

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