Assertiveness

My interviewee was a lady, teacher in village school. She is a qualified teacher with 35 years professional experience. Her subjects are: polish, informatics, revalidation, pre-school education. Previously she was responsible for physical education. Currently she is also a kindergaden teacher.

I’m a person who likes new challenges, and remote teaching was one of them. I didn’t think about the professional burnout that days, because I had no time for that, for giving up. The time had come to rise to this challenge, and I did.

From the very first day of the pandemic and the governmental decision about the remote teaching, I decided to address this challege. I was doing my classes via skype.I simply organized my working hours. I didn’t respond to messages after the certain hour. I let students send homeworks only by the certain hour. I didn’t give homeworks to studens for weekends. Assertiveness was here the solution.

.My students passed their exams very well, which gave me a lot of satisfaction from my well performed job and tasks, however more difficult at that time.
I care about my 8 grade students’ final exams and wanted my other students to acquire as much skills and knowledge as possible. I didn’t give excercises for self-education, as many teachers did, but only via skype, together with my students I tried to be successful in teaching live. Via skype, of course.

I have a grown-up child, so for sure it was easier for me to organize myslelf and to engage in professional work, which in the times of remote teaching required from teachers more effort and the ability to use ICT. Did I profit from this situation anyhow? No, rather not. Except the fact that I didn’t have to shovel the driveway :) I could do houseworks in between the lessons. On the other hand, my eyesight has worsen, I got thrombosis, my electricity bill has risen and didactic aids stored on my computer caused problems with efficient perfomance.

In the long run I can’t see any positive aspects of the remote teaching and learning. Maybe only that students acquired more ICT skills. As for me, I don’t feel any better. Remote teaching limited contacts with other teachers, which of course affected negatively the exchange of pedagogical experience, the current evaluation of the overall students’ performance, which happens most of all in the informal discussions between teachers.
My advice for other teachers is to organize well activities and to be strict as regards working hours.

“If not me, then who?” or “I can make it!”

Date: 09.09.2022
Organisation: Primary School in Berezka, Podkarpackie Region, Poland