Teacher Diaries, Entry 1:
Dealing with letting go of a good class
by Mia Tarau
From standard ESL blog posts to real-life post-PhD tertiary experiences: welcome to a new series, from the mind of a young teacher with a true passion for what she does.
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September 2022
Dear Diary,
Today I lost the ideal Zoom class, months ahead of schedule.
I had been told this would happen eventually, due to scheduling conflicts and the increasing number of students returning to campus (which is a wonderful and much-anticipated development!). However, seeing it in an official email awakened bittersweet reflections on teaching – and on learning to let go.
A flurry of thoughts flooded my mind while I was reading the email:
· Teaching is one of the most complex professions in existence in terms of the humanity involved. As the teacher, I had been an educator, a mentor, a counsellor, a role model, a life coach, a guardian, and a friend to this group of students; and I had to negotiate all these identities in the short span of 110 minutes, three evenings per week, for 20 weeks this year
· In an in-person class these identities are challenging to juggle; however, the juggling is much easier in a physical classroom than it is online (oh, the joys of teaching on Zoom!). Therefore, we often find that bonding with an online class is much more challenging, and (consequently) that sometimes we get to experience a more restricted range of teacher roles in that context
HOWEVER,
· This year I was fortunate to teach not one, but two online classes that have surprised me in the most wonderfully unexpected ways. My students in both these classes were motivated; punctual; invested in their learning; keen to bond with classmates; and determined to make the virtual classroom experience a wonderful journey for all of us
· That is what makes losing one of the and writing this teacher diary entry such a bittersweet moment
How I (re)acted:
· I asked permission to email the class and give them the news myself, in addition to the notification that they would receive from the educational provider – which was approved by management
· I spent over an hour composing the email – writing, deleting, rewriting - eventually, it ended up being a very short, but sweet good-bye letter to my wonderful class
· I asked their new teacher to allow me to pop into his first online class with my students, to say goodbye to them in person – which was approved both by management and by the new teacher (I value this support, and the understanding with which my requests were met)
How I will process the loss of these students, of whom I am very proud for their resilience, efforts, and progress:
· I will enquire about their well-being and academic performance over the final 10 weeks of the last term of 2022
· I will be extremely happy if I see them in my consultations, and I will help them with the same enthusiasm and dedication as before
· I acknowledge that the impact of this change may take a toll on me, and that it may take me some time to get used to the change
HOWEVER,
· I will make a conscious effort to concentrate on my new on-campus student group, gifting them the same dedication I have been giving my now-lost class
And finally,
· I will consciously practice gratitude for the wonderful atmosphere that we as a class have managed to build in the online classroom, and for all the wonderful moments (both teaching and learning-related, and those in which we learned to be better as people – individually and as a learning community)
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Dear Diary,
I am grateful for what I had,
and excited to meet the teacher that I will be to my new group of students.
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How do you let go of a fantastic class?