The Penny (partially) Drops!

It’s February in 2022. I think it was about this time 2 years ago, ie February or March of 2020 that in one of the ‘Parent Introductory’ meetings, we were asked about how seriously we were taking a new epidemic that was sweeping through Wuhan in China of a novel Corona virus. I assured the parent that we were watching, but not concerned – yet!

I mean it was true, we had heard about it but it could be another SARS, or MERS where there’s potential for it to morph into something very serious, but it doesn’t, it just peters out, so personally I was more in this mind set. The parent was in this regard very prescient and ahead of my curve in retrospect.

Still Fiji went into lockdown status and panic mode when it was decided to lock us down in April of 2020. MIS staff had to go on a very painful to implement conversion course into learning about online and distance learning. I was thanking my lucky stars that I had taken the MAODE programme (masters in open and distance education) in the Open University of the UK because it meant that we could avoid the common mistakes that most educators make when they try to do distance learning.

One of which is that distance learning can ‘replace’ face to face (or F2F) learning albeit not quite as well simply by recording a lesson or lecture and then sticking it up online in video channels – or even – in this modern day and age streaming it. Even at the time before I did the course, I could not grasp the logic behind the idea that if a conventional lesson in F2F mode was presented like death warmed up – then how was filming it and presenting it on a small computer or laptop screen going to make it wonderful?

A talking head is supposed to be engaging?

OK, so our MIS staff took on the challenge of learning how to do online teaching, and I honestly think we’re still on that path even now in 2022 – but I do know that we’re so far forward compared to the Public schools of Fiji and I would be so boastful as to say that we’re probably at the forefront of all the schools with respect to having a more holistic understanding of how distance learning tools can be used to support and complement a child’s learning.

Now the impetus to move to digital platforms had already begun even prior to the pandemic, but in particular with our senior students. The original plan was to develop online distance learning tools as supporting learning environments for all our students but starting with the seniors and then working our way down towards our Class 1 students. Having a pandemic lockdown in April-July of 2020 just accelerated that process by about 5-6 years.

Was it a strain on our parents?

Absolutely!

They had to try and survive in lockdown, and also had to attempt to do work during lockdown as best they could, and then to have their children attempting these new platforms, to say nothing of demanding supervision – was a nightmare. How do we know that? Because many of our teaching staff were in EXACTLY that position themselves with their own children, both at MIS our school, but also placed in other schools too.

When the lockdown started to ease in July of 2020, we cautiously opened up the school with only 2 hour time slots for each class and then lots of wiping down and cleaning up before another class would appear for another 2 hours.

Was that a strain on our parents?

Absolutely!

They still were struggling in their own work lockdown protocols but now they had this nightmare scenario where they would drop their child at school for only 2 hours. Not really enough time to start anything unless you lived or worked really close by; and then they still had to figure out how to look after their children for the rest of the day. How did we know this, other than the parents telling us? Well of course because some of our own staff were in EXACTLY the same position. Still it seemed to be ‘endured’ because the vast majority of our parents recognised that this was worth the effort and there was not much else we could do.

Come our final quarter or Term 4 of 2020 and we had resolved that we would open up completely BUT we would shut everyday at 12:30pm and still continue doing distance work in most or many afternoons. Again parents seemed to endure this period but at least MIS students were having a whole morning at school.

Fiji had, I believe mainly through luck, avoided contracting COVID in the community, but for sure shutting the borders and doing initial lockdowns along with mask wearing had to have been a positive contributing factor. It did always amaze me at the time that the main reason arrests were made for breaking curfew times was people returning back from kava sessions (ie an activity where you share kava with you friends from a single bowl and of course sit close together so that you can talanoa (chat) your time away – the very thing sure to spread COVID!!!). So no community transmission Fiji whilst we saw and read about the horrendous statistics in countries in Europe, the UK and the US.

There was definitely concern from many parents who were concerned with our missives that we were intending to continue our ‘blended‘ or ‘hybrid‘ learning model throughout 2021. Their position is easy to understand – how so? Because some of our own teachers were in EXACTLY the same position. The parents felt that they had endured three terms of inconvenience with their children’s schooling. I believe many did understand that we were leagues ahead of most of the schools in offering ‘something’ that was qualitatively better than the unsupported worksheets that the Ministry of Education supplied to the schools, but still, as mentioned above, it was a frustrating time. So then they hear that we are still doing hybrid learning AND there is no community transmission and of course they were/are asking the question ‘Why?‘.

Two reasons we gave:

1. We did not believe that the COVID pandemic was finished and we had to be prepared to be locked down. We thought it the height of wasted effort to ‘drop’ the distance learning tools we had so painfully learned about and implemented, only to potentially have to pick them up again for a future pandemic lockdown.
2. We had demonstrable experiences that distance learning had allowed some of our students who were not so forthright in the F2F learning mode, to absolutely shine.

The latter fits in well with the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, and the way that this theory is incorporated into the teaching and learning at MIS. So for us this is the main reason to continue the blended mode.

The first reason though is the one that parents can most easily grab onto and still ‘endure’ the hardship of having our students in Term 1 arrive at 8am and then leave at 1pm everyday.

Not every family did and we had some epic ‘discussions‘ with parents (as in there was definitely some heated talking) whom in the end felt that MIS was not the right school for their child if we were not willing to take on the role of both education and child-minding. One (infamous?) father stating in a meeting that he loved the education that we gave his son but couldn’t’ we just space it out over a longer time period so that he could be picked up at 3pm instead of 1pm? (spoiler alert, the answer was ‘No!’). Probably we lost about 6 families at the beginning of 2021 (for the same reasons I believe we lost about 2 families at the end of 2020).

Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

Sadly, Fiji did let their guard down and complacency in protocols meant that COVID was in the community in Fiji towards the end of March and we were only 2 weeks into our second term when we went into full lockdown again.

OK – phew! That was a long explanation to get to the point I’m trying to make in this post. It was for the majority only then that the penny dropped as to why we were continuing with our blended and hybrid learning. There is even a perverse and more than morbid sense of relief that it happened because I suspect if the pandemic had petered out like SARS or MERS then we, as a school, would have probably been labelled as too cautious. Instead we received many compliments from parents into our foresight and wisdom in continuing the blended learning. And it was certainly true that the students themselves adapted very quickly to a completely online learning and distance learning mode.

I think the sad thing about this is that whilst parents did accept the wisdom of not trusting that COVID was finished in Fiji at the end of 2020 and complimented us, very few have understood the pedagogical reasoning for continuing with hybrid learning. Here we are at the beginning of 2022 and parent are still complaining that hybrid learning ‘doesn’t work‘ and ‘Why are we doing this when schools in other countries are opening up to full time?‘ We’ve lost even parents this year again because of this rationale even though their children, in our opinion, have demonstrably grown and learned during this time period. We still have parents who complain that they have to ‘endure’ the company of their children for the periods where they are doing the distance learning and are not coming to school because our current national policies and protocols do not allow larger groups that 20 to convene.

Small caveat here. I want to acknowledge that there is a significant minority of parents that TOTALLY get where we’re coming from. Totally understand the rationale both from the pandemic point of view, but more importantly (for us) the pedagogic point of view.

For the rest however, if the penny has dropped, then it feels as if it’s still bouncing up again from time to time, it still hasn’t come to a complete standstill. Until then we are still having to explain ourselves and the rationale, and still losing families who simply don’t get it (or don’t want to get it).