Knowing yourself in the Digital Space: Questions to contemplate for artists and educators moving to teaching online.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many teaching artists and educators find themselves in a rapid shift to online teaching. Depending on your geographic location, employer or organization, you are also faced with guidelines, expectations, and different technological hurdles and learning curves. As difficult and time consuming as this transition can be, I want to encourage a moment of reflection on some of the deeper issues at play that could be easily overlooked. While contemplation may seem to be an unaffordable luxury as we rush to get started, I believe if we take the time to ask ourselves a few questions and do some reflective deep thinking it will help us as we navigate all the other parameters and challenges of the moment we find ourselves in. So I invite you to find a calm quiet corner of your home if at all possible, take a deep breath, and ask yourself these questions. Don’t overthink it. Avoid any urge to roll your eyes, and write the answers down somewhere.
Why do I teach?
Why do I (or did I) make art?
Are the answers to the first two questions at all similar? If no, why not?
What is it that makes me a “good” or effective teacher?
What is the core belief I hope comes across in the classroom?
What will students miss about being in a room with me? (be honest)
What, if any, are the rituals that exist in my classroom culture?
Take another deep breath, and read over your answers. How do your answers translate into the new digital space you will be teaching in for the coming months? What I mean by asking this is, What are the challenges and advantages to teaching the way you teach, or the way you aspire to teach, in the online space? How can you bring those qualities that are most important for you to share into this new space, maintaining the rituals that your students rely on and value? Make two columns on a piece of paper, one for advantages and one for challenges and write down what you find. I believe putting these questions and this process first is the most productive and rewarding path we can take into this new educational space. Once we identify, or simply remember, who we are, why we do what we do, and what makes us unique as educators, It will aid us in navigating the next questions: What is the minimal and most simple technology needed to accomplish this? How do I use the Technology provided for me? And how do I achieve compliance with the guidelines of my employer or district? But these questions should be last in the chain. You know how to be an artist, and you know how to teach. You know the relationship with your students. You know what you do well, and what you would like to better. Let that lead the way. The technology can serve your discovery, and compliance with employer expectations can be strategized and met, I believe, without too much compromise. We may find that this new digital space for teaching, when led by our own best instincts and experience, can provide unexpected opportunity and reward that can benefit both our students and our own teaching practice. I have spoken to educator colleagues who have confirmed this. a Teaching Artist working in China through the lock-down confided in me of the increased intimacy between her and her students that was achieved and maintained during this time. She spoke of students feeling more comfortable sharing work directly with her outside of the classroom setting. While she confirmed it was the hardest she had ever worked, there were rewarding and unexpected advantages to working in this new space. Months ahead of many of us in the timeline of this virus, she is now back in her classroom, expressing concerns about what might be lost in the return to in-person teaching.
So gift yourself a few hours for this contemplation, and let it lead your way.