The edu-clock is ticking

Potential new-look classrooms.

It was a gathering – yes, a gathering – we’d anticipated since the first days of the province-wide shutdown back in March. Monday night, we entertained half of the family – one daughter and her three sons – at dinner on our back porch. We actually sat together at the table. And we hugged the grandkids for the first time in four months. It felt wonderful. But the next morning, as we smiled in the afterglow, my wife observed:

“You know, once they’re back at school, we’re going to have to be extra careful.” (more…)

Online or out-of-line

Ontario teachers on picket lines. Owen Sound Sun Times.

It was one of those re-inventing-the-wheel sessions. Neither I nor my fellow professors at the college, where I taught journalism from 1999 to 2017, sensed we were having problems getting through to our students at that moment. Nevertheless, college decision-makers called a meeting for some PD (professional development) training, this particular day. They said they had great news!

“We’re going to make teaching easier for you,” the experts informed us that day. “Online teaching is the new wave in education.”

I think I turned to one of my colleagues and whispered in Doubting-Thomas fashion, “It may just be the wave that wipes us all out, or at least leaves us sputtering for our lives.” (more…)