Now that the lockdown is in full effect due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I find that I am relieved I no longer have to go into the University to teach or learn. As a person who is immunocompromised, with multiple chronic illnesses, I was beginning to wonder how I was going to navigate refusing to come into the university to preserve my own safety.
There is a lot of rhetoric around the virus “only being dangerous for the old and sick”. The implication being twofold: that it is fine for the healthy to catch it because they will survive, and that it is also fine to continue to put those of us classified as ‘vulnerable’ at risk, because they were sick anyway. It’s very difficult to hear and see colleagues on the PgCert, as well as some of my students, espouse this opinion without reacting negatively to them. I have had to give myself strict rules around engaging with any Covid related propaganda or conversation that is centred around opinion rather than verifiable fact. This is partly so that I protect my mental health, and partly so that I can maintain professionalism with colleagues and students when faced with a conversation which essentially says it’s ok for my safety to be compromised for the comfort of others. How does a person remain professional and objective in the wake rampant racism and ableism induced by a pandemic?
As a person who is chronically ill I am used to working from home. I have been remote working for the best part of two years, the nature of my disability dictating that I have a flexible schedule which allows me to rest when I need to. In an odd way, this has prepared me for the current climate of online teaching and learning. Due to my illnesses I am often housebound, and have frequently had to adapt meetings, lessons and workshops to suit an online format so that I can participate from home if I am having a bad day. I am also used to being at home for long periods, with little connection with the outside world – simply because I am sometimes incapacitated for weeks at a time. It has been interesting to watch the world adapt to a way of life that I adopted some time ago as a matter of a very different kind of necessity and survival.
Being used to this kind of working, I find that I am having to remind myself that the current lockdown situation will be a huge adjustment for many. I find that it is hard for me to be compassionate towards non-disabled people who are complaining that they have to stay inside all the time to protect others. I am struggling with being compassionate for the extroverts wrestling with their mental health because they find themselves cut off from others. I have been chronically ill for 8 years now, and very few people have shown compassion or understanding for people with disabilities – both during and prior to this pandemic the response for the disabled and sick has been largely contemptuous.
Within a teaching context, this raises interesting questions for me. I have had to put aside my own feelings and resentments and focus on remaining compassionate to my students. At times this has tested me, particularly when I have needed to reassure my students of their safety within the university when I feel unsafe myself. The majority of the cohort on the MA Applied Imagination course are overseas students from China. As a result of this, myself and my colleagues have already engaged in multiple, difficult, conversations with our students about what would happen to the course in the case of a lockdown. A few of my students have also come to me asking me where they can go for help and support due to the increased anti-East Asian racism they have experienced as a result of Covid. In the wake of so much uncertainty prior to the government’s recent decision to take the UK into a lockdown, we did our best to reassure them that the course would continue either in person or online and our leadership team began making preparations to move the course entirely online for the foreseeable future. Luckily our course does not involve the teaching of any practical skills, such as jewellery making, a difficult subject to teach remotely.
At the moment, many of my students are currently self-isolating in hotels or their rooms after travelling home. Some were unable to catch flights or trains and are ostensibly stuck in overseas student accommodation in the UK. Of those that were able to make it home, a few of them have mentioned that their home environment is not conducive to learning; with interruptions, sick or elderly relatives, difficulties with internet connectivity, lack of access to laptops or computers all presenting barriers to learning. I have frequently reminded my students that I am here to support them with their studies, and I have also signposted them to the university’s counselling and support services. Beyond that, I have also been encouraging my students to take a break and rest. Many of them have mentioned that they are finding it hard to stay motivated and to concentrate while they are being bombarded by constant updates via social media and the news. I remind them that I have no answers, but that I can share with them what I have been doing to protect my mental health and hope it works for them. I have been taking a social media break and my brain a rest from studying by engaging in other activities such as automatic writing and drawing. It is an intense time, and we must acknowledge and make space for the emotions which come up for us now and make time for self care. Some of my students have also taken up automatic writing and say it has helped. Either way, I have been encouraging them to engage in a self-care activity that helps them to feel centred and calm.
So far the major barrier to online teaching has been the poor internet connections of the students who have returned to their home countries. As Zoom is not a UAL approved calling platform, Blackboard collaborate is the main virtual classroom software we use at the moment
. Unfortunately it has a limited bandwidth, meaning that mics need to be muted and cameras need to be off if a student isn’t speaking with me. This removes a lot of the visual cues students give while learning, such as nodding to show that they understand. It also adds to the difficulties with language barriers, since body language contributes so much to what is being said. Bad internet connections causing students to miss minutes worth of tutorials are also adding to the challenge of teaching online. At these times I find myself reminding the students, and myself, to be patient. Most people are working in new ways here and it will take time to troubleshoot and formalise some of the processes. It is a good lesson for them on resourcefulness, resilience and making lemonade, although the situation is of course far from ideal from the perspective of a healthy student who had envisioned an exciting year of study in London.
After reading through the resource, Russ Harris’ guide to mental fitness in Covid-19 which Lindsay shared with us on Moodle, I also shared it with my students during my latest tutorial in the hopes that it would help them to feel supported. Soon they will have about 8 weeks of independent study and it is my hope that by that time I will have imparted the importance of rest and self-care as essential factors in their learning and development as researchers. So far it seems that some of them have taken my words to heart, but only time will tell the impact this series of lockdown will have on their work. I have faith that we can all rise to the occasion, finding compassion for one another and ourselves in the best ways we know how.
Bibliography
Harris, Russ. (2020). Face Covid: How to Respond Effectively to the Corona Crisis, PDF document.
Available at: https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/902172/mod_resource/content/2/Russ%20Harris%20guide%20to%20mental%20fitness%20during%20C-19.pdf