International Women’s Day |12 March 2021
‘Virtual teaching became a fascinating learning journey for myself and even my kids’ – Merna Pool
As customary on March 8, Seychelles joins the world to celebrate the International Women’s Day. This year’s theme chosen by the United Nations is ‘Women in leadership: achieving an equal future in Covid-19 world.’ Since the beginning of the week, Seychelles NATION in collaboration with other ministries, has been portraying successful and resilient women. Seychelles NATION, in collaboration with the Ministry of Family, Youth and Sports has been featuring bios of women front liners in the fight against Covid-19.
Women in Seychelles are surely the backbone of the society and have been in the forefront of this pandemic be it in the health, economic and social sectors. Today we speak with a teacher, Merna Pool.
Question: How has your experience as a teacher amid Covid-19 been? Any changes?
Merna Pool: The changes in terms of experience as a teacher who had to navigate through the cross currents of this Covid-19 pandemic have been of abundance inspite of the challenges they carried. The experiences gained had and are contributing immensely to my holistic development as a typical, Seychellois female professional who is not only an English teacher as per my field of specialisation but also discharging a key leadership position in the school that has nurtured and groomed me for more than 15 years, that is Praslin secondary.
As a professional this pandemic, especially its second wave, has allowed me to ponder deeply on the philosophy of Sugata Mitra, a widely cited professor in the works of literacy education, who advocates that as humans we need to “keep learning and keep growing, no matter what”. This advocation has in times of this pandemic urged me to adjust my teaching and leadership strategies to meet the demands of this fast evolving educational, leadership and management world, where technology reigns, so as to benefit my students, departmental members, school and community. This pandemic has indeed taught me that simply being digitally literate did not suffice but to bring about a transition from my regular classroom based teaching to an online one. This is where I had to see myself and departmental team members collaboratively involved in bringing the English curriculum across all levels online on platforms that our students were already conversant with such as WhatSapp, the school’s BlogSpot and via personalised emails.
Constantly engaging myself in devising and uploading tutorial based, self-regulated learning packs has been a way of directly connecting and communicating with my students even if we are not in a typical classroom setting. To ease this self-regulated teaching and learning process I had to engage myself in regular QuickTime screen or audio recordings explaining to students how to effectively navigate through their tutorial packs as this transition had not been made possible at all levels while the school was not operational. In doing so, I saw myself acquiring skills and knowledge which are in turn passed on to my departmental staff via virtual mode so as to also build their capacity.
Question: What have you gained from this experience?
Merna Pool: On a professional stance, this experience has indeed taught me to understand that one should always be fully prepared to meet the unforeseen challenges that await us. One should never feel satisfied in quenching one’s thirst for learning as this is a lifelong process. With this respect, through a “self-taught” approach to learning, I have acquired knowledge and skills vital in delivering online as we navigate our way through this pandemic. I have been more aware of my students’ and departmental members’ individual limitations thus allowing me to be more flexible as to adjust to these limitations.
Question: What is your proudest moment while working in this trying time? And the challenges?
Merna Pool: Guess, I will admit it’s going to be the interaction with my students, departmental members and even parents whom I have not even met over school open days. I will admit that these interactions are heart fulfilling in the sense that over a typical working day time does not permit you to have such interactions. It is really encouraging to see how many of our parents out there are concerned with their child’s education, as you see them engaged in online debates via WhatSapp once a speaking exercise is being done.
However, I will acknowledge that throughout this transition process, I saw myself having to face two major challenges; one being the fact that I had to acquaint myself to certain virtual modes of teaching such as google classroom which I have never had a hands-on experience with and the second, for accountability purpose, maintain contact with my students to ensure their social integration and interaction in established learning groups and those set up by my departmental members. The former has been a challenge turned into opportunities, as I see myself adopting a “self-taught” approach to learning, in order to acquire knowledge and skills so as to be more proficient in interweaving the content of my subject curriculum with ICT via more sophisticated virtual platforms. A process which at times I had to see my 12-year-old twin boys coming to my rescue as I took the wrong approach to success. But still, it became a fascinating learning journey for myself and even my kids.
However, the latter still remains a challenge as reaching out to many of our students and/or parents especially from the lower bands have been very hectic. This have to do with their inaccessibility with the internet service due to the costs that it bears, the students’ and even parents’ digital incompetency which refrain them from accessing and even navigating through some of these platforms such as the BlogSpot and foremost in acquiring parental support in supervising their child as they learn from home. Again, as our educational system evokes education as being a shared responsibility, the latter remains a challenge especially now that we are in the centre of this pandemic and digitalisation is the core of our instructional process.
Question: Do you feel that women have played a significant role in helping to fight against Covid-19? Explain.
Merna Pool: In the context of Seychelles, I will admit, definitely yes, as many of the front line workers – whether in public or private sectors – who in spite of this pandemic are bound to deliver a service, are mainly women. Just our health sector is enough to substantiate this where almost 75% of our Seychellois health practitioners are women, thus exposing them to a greater risk of infection as many respond to the state’s wake-up call to save lives during this pandemic. Furthermore, it is to be attested that many of the women who have to work from home or see themselves made redundant during this difficult situation, are shouldering much of the challenges in educating their children on the importance of staying indoors and in adopting the right sanitary measures as advised by the Ministry[A1] of Health to prevent the spread of this virus and when the right time comes for them to forge their way, well equipped, back to the society.
On this note I would like to salute all the female health practitioners, front and second line leading managers in essential and even non-essential services who spend endless and sleepless nights right from the surge of the first outbreak of this pandemic to plan ahead on how they can discharge their duties with efficacy without having to jeopardize their health, that of their family, our society and global village.
On the other hand, it will be as if I’m casting a blind eye on this special feminine group, who have made time to touch despondent souls out there during this pandemic. For this I want to salute these women who form the backbone of many NGOs who gallantly believe in service before self.
An old adage makes us realise that indeed “it takes a whole village to raise a child”. However, I will admit that as a society, in time of the Covid-19 pandemic, it takes a whole community to appease this pandemic. So, as arduous and cautious women, let us bring our contributions in making a difference during these struggles.
Contributed