Poem on April 14
I try to imagine how it will go.
Let’s say I’ve got 15 or 20 students
in the classroom with me.
Let’s say I have another 5 to 10
students who are still at home
but who would like to partake
in the classroom happenings.
They call this a simulcast.
What it really means, I imagine,
is that students at home
will be looking at a blank
white board on their computer
screens. Because my voice
might be amplified, they might
hear me, disembodied, addressing
the students they can’t hear
sitting in desks
that they can’t see,
and even if the audio is swell,
what they hear will be decidedly
one-sided. If they work really
hard they might be able to pick
up a full exchange or two.
The students at home, every
once in a while, might see me
move through their screen
across the blank white board
to get from one side of the room
to another. But every now
and then, I will probably stop
in front of this computer
to check in on them, to see
if they have questions, to see
if they would like to contribute
something or share something
with the other students in the room.
And this explains, in large part,
why they don’t want us to
deliver new instruction during
a simulcast. The students
at home would be seriously
disadvantaged, even more so
than they are in this scenario.
I imagine that only the hard core
will stick with it and the truth
is that right now there’s just
no better way outside of hiring
a film crew for every teacher.
Teachers just have to do more
of that miracle stuff they do
and that everyone expects,
you know, super hero teacher
stuff, like being all things to
all people and in two places
at one time.
michael jarmer 