(Re)connecting the dots…

This year many of us focussed on making sense of the post-pandemic world and how similar or different it is from what we grew used to until 2020. When discussing the changes and challenges, most colleagues I talked to referred to remote work, new technologies, new tools that we started considering more carefully and that contributed to shifting some paradigms in our classrooms, perhaps bringing new light to teaching and learning a language. I’ll leave these for future posts and focus here on a reflection about rapport in the classroom.

Throughout the pandemic, teachers and learners responded to an emergent need to keep lessons alive while also keeping a safe distance. People were no longer together in a classroom where the energy seemed to flow and all available senses could be activated. We were rather forced to choose technology that allowed us to keep focussing on the syllabus, delivering what we promised and helping students reach their goals as much as possible. My first question is: was that our objective all along? To teach the content, regardless of the circumstances and the people involved?

In the past, I have stated that the moment we start teaching the syllabus, the book, the slides and complaining about students, we should listen to the signs that maybe we lost something in the way. This feeling became stronger as the pandemic advanced: we had a lot to do in a lesson and it was a terrible time for the world and for each of us, it became safer to hold on to what we could still control: the contents of our lessons. Then, how can we embrace vulnerability (while trying to stay strong) and establish meaningful connections in a world where keeping a distance is the norm?

Interaction and a genuine interest in people takes a lot of effort from the teacher. However, it is often taken for granted, as if building rapport with students were a lesser skill for a teacher. Without it there is no learning, I’m afraid. When students feel involved, connected, a sense of belonging, their curiosity, their engagement may be the starting point for them to read, listen, research content autonomously inside and outside the classroom. Perhaps we have inherited a strong belief that education is about tests, books, contents, and assumed that is the core of our job. What I believe makes us unique and irreplaceable by machines is our ability to connect with each other (our fellow teachers and our students), inspire, feel, make mistakes, learn. How can the shaken post-pandemic world lead us to significant changes in what we do/ focus on?

Along with the questions to kick off this discussion, I evoke Rupi Kaur’s words so that we remember all the connection, rapport, wellbeing, starts with us and we are still standing:

and here you are living

despite it all