With NCR Covid 19 Alert Levels going down every month, Metro Manila public transport is opening to an increasing number of commuters, malls are seeing an increase in shoppers, and educational eager beavers have laid down conditions for face-to-face classes in 2022. But despite a parade of vaccines and the promise of new medications, Covid-19 is still, and will be, active and lethal throughout 2022. So beyond the givens vaccination and heightened personal hygiene, how then will teachers like me protect ourselves?
When I think about how teaching changed during the pandemic, I remembered Pythagorias’ alleged acousmatic method. The root word in ancient Greek was akousmatikoi, which refers to probationary students who were separated from their teacher by a veil so they could concentrate on the lessons. It’s like listening to a musical recording in which you do not see the actual musicians or instruments in a performance. In a sense this is what we’ve been doing online since the start of the pandemic. We have been veiled from our students by our computer screens. On Zoom, and depending on the strength and bandwidth of the internet connection, teachers and students students would see and hear either a wall of low resolution moving mugshots of eachother, and in some cases complete with fake green screen backgrounds, in a desperate attempt to feign the normalcy of in-person lectures. I took this even further in consideration for those with poor internet connections by unilaterally streaming lectures on Facebook Live. So while my students could see me, I couldn’t see them. Their only channel for feedback was the chatbox. My background in radio broadcasting and studio recording made me comfortable with talking to an invisible class. It was not until the last meeting of the semester did I hold a Zoom meeting and finally get to see them talking and moving. Some students commented that my streams were helpful in controlling their expensive and/or unstable internet connection. Others missed the real-time aural and visual interactions in their other classes that held Zoom meetings. But the bridging the digital divide was my primary priority.
This mode was not without its pitfalls. In many cases, teachers not adept with their devices fumbled and stumbled with the technologies. Some developed various anxieties appearing online, similar to performers stage fright. Likewise, students experienced their own share of technological and/or psychological issues from being glued to their screens and limited to their tiny learning spaces. Somehow, people settled into the routines of quarantine and virtual connections, and the electronic veil that separated teachers and students became the norm. In the second school year of online education, I observe both teachers and students are more proficient, less resistant, and more creative in online teaching and learning.
If and when face-to-face classes resume with a still-active pandemic, it will again have to be done not with a virtual, but familiar physical veil. This is what served as the first line of personal defense throughout the pandemic, the surgical face mask. The casualty here will be oral gestures and the voice. The mouth is a very expressive part of one’s face. Covering it will limit the teacher-lecturers facial expression. For example, in daily life a smile is priceless. Whenever I go shopping, it’s been difficult to show sales people your approval and/or appreciation while wearing a mask. There are transparent/translucent masks for those who need to interact with deaf lip-readers and those with disabilities. But these do not provide as much protection as regular surgical masks. This leads to the next problem. Covering the mouth and nose will limit the dynamic range of the voice and limit the movement of the lips. Another strike against a teacher. And what about students? How will they recite? How will they ask questions? How will they discuss with each other? Again, there are technological remedies for these problems. Wireless microphones and portable PA systems can amplify teacher-lecturers voices outdoors and in medium to large classrooms. Oldskool language labs, complete with plexiglass cubicles and multi-point sound systems can be pressed back into action. In schools that never had such facilities, plexiglass dividers, like those in fastfood restaurants, can be built to isolate students from each other. If all these physical barriers become a reality, recitation and discussion will still be awkward. In the absence of multi-point sound systems, one solution will be text chats via Facebook Messenger, Viber, or other messaging platforms inside the classroom during class time. All these technological remedies will be costly, and threaten to widen to gap between the haves and the have-nots. Just thinking about it makes me wonder if just staying at home and doing a zoom meeting would be better than coming to a classroom with so many physical barriers.
It took a year for those fortunate enough to afford the needed technological infrastructure to get comfortable with online teaching and learning. And it’s taking a little longer for the economically challenged to catch up. I foresee adapting to a new face-to-face but barrier-filled classroom will take at least the same amount of time for infrastructure to be built, routines to change, and new risks to be mitigated, and people to become adept and comfortable in using it.
I understand Pythagorias point about putting a veil between him and his akousmatikoi. There are many cases in which we intentionally limit our senses in order to experience things in certain ways. Some listeners close their eyes when they want to listen to music critically. Some viewers seek complete silence when they want to focus on a painting. and some readers will limit their peripheral vision when they want to concentrate on a page. But these are special practices, in which imagination eventually fills in the gaps of the experience. Distance-education practitioners may disagree with me, but i feel teaching is at least both intellectual and sensory. I believe the classroom is a performance venue in which the teacher appeals to all the student’s senses, and visa versa. It is a place where spoken words and texts join non-verbal gestures, such as eye-contact, facial expressions, kinesics, etc., must all be available. Intentionally limiting even just one is counterproductive.
I am a year and a half away from retirement, and therefore may not experience the post-pandemic teaching experience in full bloom. Whatever future teacher do, I hope this experience of teaching during the pandemic makes them realize that any veil imposed on their work must immediately be recognized and overcome. While technology can provide some solutions, presence, in all its multi sensory glory, should remain the norm.
