Every now and again you run across another idea from an armchair quarterback who has little or no skin in the game. I couldn’t help but shudder when I read the ideas in this article.
I acknowledge that it’s an article from the United States and so doesn’t translate directly into Ontario, but sometimes ideas spread. I just hope that this isn’t one of them.
The one big takeaway from this is the focus on student privacy. That’s a very good thing and needs to be bullet point #1 in any discussion.
Teaching in the pandemic has brought forth all kinds of solutions for dealing with education where some teaching is face to face, some is at a distance, and some a little of both.
It’s probably the nature of the teaching beast in that it’s easy to spot the flaws in any scenario. All that teachers want are the perfect teaching and learning conditions for their classroom. Anyone who has been in the classroom know that it just doesn’t exist.
In my mind, the scenario of the “teacher cam” is just scary. I suspect that the idea may have come from someone whose most recent teaching experience has been at a university or college where the notion of a direct lecture can be the only way of doing business. But step into many of those classes today and the whole environment has change.
How many classrooms like the above are your actual reality. That could be captured on camera!
There have been many things caught “on camera” and to the credit of the authors of the article have been recognized. Thankfully, they’re the exception rather than the rule but stuff still happens.
Last week, I did a video interview with Mind Share Learning. It seemed to last forever although the forever was probably 45 minutes. I’m never at a loss for words and I like a good discussion but knowing that my camera was capturing every move kept me in one place, and my hands from scratching an itch that had developed about half way through.
But my pitiful experience pales in comparison with:
17 Teachers Whose Day Could Use A Serious, Serious Do-Over
As an aside, I’d love to be able to see pictures from Instagram embedded in a webpage instead of having to open a new window upon click.
Now, we’ve all had to do do-overs. Even when you have the perfect lesson, there’s that student who just doesn’t get it and you need to work in a Plan B. It’s tough at the best of times but doing it when part of your class is working from remote and you may not notice it in time?
I can’t imagine any teacher who would suggest that this might be a great working solution. I can’t imagine any administrator. I can’t imagine any vest parent. Unfortunately, there are other decision makers in the game.
I truly hope that all of this pandemic teaching and the multitude of challenges that it has created is but a blip in the history of education. There will definitely be many lessons to be learned as a result. Education can’t help but change; the pandemic has exposed many of the faults with the current system.
From this chair, I absolutely cannot see this as a good solution emerging from our current reality.
doug --- off the record 