When we closed in a rush, amid the pandemic scare, it was an unexpected break. Determined to clear up pending work and armed with future academic plans, I decided to face things head on. I soon realised how naïve I was to think like that. Work from home is probably the most challenging thing to do. It is like an open book exam – sounds easy, especially when you go in for the first time, thinking it’s going to be a cakewalk, but once you enter you realise the difficulty of it. Like an open book exam, work from home is a misleading term; one needs to prepare for it a lot more than what one would expect.
Time management is one of the main challenges. When you go for work, there is a fixed schedule for everything. Once at the University, things go smoothly as per the preordained structure. At home, preparing a schedule might seem easy and logical but sticking to it is an uphill task, for there are so many variables that can have a direct effect on it. One major variable is having a toddler around the house, who inexplicably, always, has some urgent need or the other, just as you are settling down to prepare for the class.
Another has to mostly do with the gender you associate with and the societal norms associated with that said gender. There are certain parts of the house which become your territory, even if you don’t want it to. Such as the kitchen. Everyone is locked in and wants to find solace in warm home cooked food (nothing stored overnight would do now and take away options are next to none), everyone wants to escape from their mundane routine with different varieties of cuisine (nothing remote to professional level; but for a lack of better analogy, the kitchen tends to appear like a chemistry lab with ongoing experiments).
All this means more commotion in the otherwise not that active corner of the house and more work for some people!
In spite of all this, we still rise. Professional integrity tells us to make it work, and work is done. It has taught me to steal time and prepare lessons which have taken a different form. Moving to online classes was something I had thought of trying since long. However, when it came so suddenly, I learnt to quickly adapt to it. Preparing audio lessons and uploading readings and notes have become natural now. I do miss the discussions in class that paved the way for newer topics which otherwise one might not have thought of, but thanks to the discussion forums on Moodle, there is still hope. I have come to recognise how much it means to be in a class, interacting with the students in person. I look forward to these sessions and interestingly, so do the students.
It is delightful to note how students can be full of surprises. Earlier, the daunting task of getting them to read lay on the teacher, now the onus is on them. They want to read and think and learn. Zoom classes have such great participation. WhatsApp is buzzing with doubts to be cleared. It is indeed heart-warming to see this and makes one put in even more effort.
Times like these test our resolve. Motivation whether on the part of the student or the teacher is important to keep going. Being in touch (figuratively of course!) brings that sense of belonging, a realisation that we are all in this together, helping each other, learning from each other, because we are one big CVV family. Yet, all said and done, I can’t wait for the campus to open!
