Launch meeting again,
It’s time to start class,
My students show up,
They just want to pass.
Cameras on, please,
So I know that you’re there,
I hope you can hear me,
I hope that you care.
I love teaching French,
I love teaching you,
But teaching on Zoom?
I haven’t a clue.
Having tech problems?
You’d better reboot,
Log off and rejoin us,
Or mute and unmute.
Learning comes second,
When school is online,
Our morale and our progress,
In steady decline.
Missing assignments,
Here’s another extension,
Please come to class,
Please pay attention.
You may prefer to watch YouTube,
Or play games on your phone,
I know that you’re struggling,
But you’re never alone.
This isn’t the school year,
You deserve or you need,
But if we both do our best,
You still can succeed.
Haunted by COVID,
The gloom and the doom,
It’s hard to be focused,
While sitting on Zoom.
I can’t wait to meet you all,
At the end of this ordeal,
To be there in a classroom,
And teaching for real.
We mustn’t give up,
The tables are turning,
In no time at all,
We’ll be in-person learning!
Zoom Desk Photo by Gabriel Benois on Unsplash
I’m so glad someone took me up on offer to use poetry for a response. But I never expected it to be so good. So perceptive – it brings to life the shortcomings of remote teaching and learning.
A thoughtful reflection on the challenges of teaching via Zoom. It shows how much you care for your students and your craft as a teacher. Hopefully better days are near.
Thank you, that’s very kind! I intended it to be light-hearted, but it also ended up touching on the deeper repercussions for students (and teachers).
Such a different post and done so creatively, who knew you can make a poem on remote teaching! Love it Rachel!
Rachel,
J’adore ce poème! I haven’t really seen learning through Zoom from a teaching position so it was cool to see a bit of that in your poem. I definitely connected with this poem. Fantastique! Magnifique!
Love this so much, Rachel! I adore how you used poetry in such a cool and modern way. Reading about the struggles and critiques of Zoom and online learning is always fun to hear about, but you twisted in such a way that is so much more interesting!