We are over a month since kids physically returned to school here in Hong Kong. The kids have gotten used to the ‘new normal’ where their temperatures are checked coming in and going out. The youngest ones have learned not to play with their masks and to use hand sanitizer at every turn.
It has been hard on the kids. Lessons begin half an hour earlier than usual. Some of the kids still struggle to wake up in the morning. There are a few sleepers in class. The kids only have 10 minutes of recess per day. They do not have their lunch at school like normal, but they can go home early at 12:30 pm. For kids, it is the time between learning where the most critical learning takes place. It is where they build relationships and learn to make friends. It has been taken away because of COVID. Classes are now distilled to the information needed for the test/exam/assessment. There isn’t the time to build on the learning and help the kids discover new things and build on what they know.
There is one girl — Cherry — who talked and talked and talked and talked even though her English was lacking at the end of last year. She tried to express herself and even messaged me after and before school, asking questions about things. The messages were sent with the mother’s and the school’s knowledge. Anything I can do to help is what I am here for. I am a teacher. Since the beginning of this year, she has changed. When I talk to her, she looks frustrated and unwilling to speak. When I ask what’s wrong, she says she is bored, tired and she looks drained. It is sad.
The teachers are just as stressed. The school needs to prepare them for important exams, slotting them into better secondary schools and leading to university and a better life in the future. There is no time to explain with reduced class time. Everything is focused on grammar and the nuts and bolts of learning — not on the time-consuming construction and making meaning that makes learning fun. Lesson time tends to be dry for the students and hard to prepare for the teachers knowing they can do more if they had more time to help the kids be more motivated to learn.
I am still lucky since most of my lessons are not on the exams. My job is to provide the desert on top of the boiled vegetables of knowledge. Teaching in COVID is a challenge, but we try. It is hard to make things interesting when the kids can’t sit together, can’t touch physical things, and are mostly shielded behind temporary plexiglass. Our school and our kids are adjusting, but I worry they are not learning but memorizing formulas and not understanding what they mean or how to use them.
I shouldn’t care but I do.
