Writing

I can’t believe it -it really is over. I will officially never teach my lovely teen students again.

Everything seemed normal when I got up this morning. I got dressed, had a simple breakfast, petted Ziggy gently on the head, prepared my background and arranged the flowers for my students to see, and waited for them to connect on Zoom. They were as cheerful as they could be, and as they always are. The thought of it being our last session together never once crossed my mind, not even when I announced it was in the end. It just didn’t feel real.

It was impossible it was going to happen, or not happen anymore in this case. As usual, I clicked “end meeting for all participants”, and the little pop-up window disappeared in the blink of an eye. I continued staring at the screen for a few seconds, and then went on to check my school emails as I would every single day. There were a few messages from students. They still needed help at least. What a relief to hold onto.

As I’m writing this, I really am done though. I have responded to each of their questions, helped them correcting their final piece of work, made sure they had a place to submit their work onto Google Classroom. The only thing left is for me to write individually to each and every one of them to tell them how proud I am of who they have become, and how proud they have made me for being their teacher. I had never met such an amazing bunch of kids in my entire career, which already counts nine schools in France and in the UK altogether.

For the first time in my career today, I finished my lesson, closed my computer, and couldn’t contain my tears. It hasn’t been a year like any other. I assume I would have gently accepted the idea to say goodbye to them in a normal context, one where we would have been able to speak and laugh and congratulate each other in person in the comfort of our hot-and-cold classroom. We would have just carried on with our lives separately and been happy to have crossed each other’s path. I know some of them would have.

But these are not normal circumstances. Over almost a month, we’ve had to cope with a new system of communication together and learnt to do just about the same through a static screen, questionable internet connections, and external -or internal- noises sometimes. You would have thought this might have distanced us from each other, but ironically, when I think back about it all I feel like it made us closer than we could ever have been. Maybe this is where my deep sadness comes from this time -they are not just my students. They have become the close partners with whom to learn and live through a unique, exceptional kind of a lifestyle and the challenges and societal questions it raises. More than anything else, they have taught me to become more human. I could never thank them enough for that.

We did it, dear students and partners. Together, we made a new life for ourselves and I am amazed and impressed with your exceptional endurance, resilience, and cooperation. You will achieve extraordinary things in your life and I can’t wait to discover them. I will miss you dearly -thank you for making me so, so proud. I have learnt so much from you.

Stay safe.

They’ve started saying it, and I think I’m beginning to agree -a revolution is happening in the world of education right now.

A few weeks ago, when most European schools were ordered to close down and flows of educational businesses generously offered to post their material online for teachers and parents for free, I couldn’t quite catch why this was bothering me and so many of my colleagues.

But this is what I’ve learnt so far. These businesses are not the matter really. What seems to be however is the myth that this generous action conveys in people’s mind -education would all be just about following the instructions on a piece of (digital) paper. That’s all. Teaching would mean nothing else but just submit a bunch of written guidelines to students and wait for them to do what is expected of them. Individual feedback would then become the one and only, tedious, task performed by the teacher.

Over my seven-year career, I have learnt that teaching has nothing to do with what instructors have tried to convince us of, as good as they were. In the case of a teacher just as much as a parent or a student, it is not about following instructions. It is about learning to react to them.

Think about it. You’re homeschooling your nine-year-old child who won’t be able to sit for more than twenty minutes. You’re teaching thirty hyperactive 13-year-olds right after lunch. No matter how much you try to make them follow the rule, read the instruction and do the task, there is no chance neither of these children will neither concentrate nor succeed. What do you do then?

Well, there we are -you have to learn how to react to your audience. What are their needs in this particular moment? What is it they’re so agitated about? What can you do to help them focus in spite of their mindset right now? This is what teaching is about. And no book, no educational business, as good and well-intentioned as they are, can do this.

To all of you who are providing education to children no matter how, well done to you. We’re doing a fabulous job together.

Lots of “last…” ahead this week.

For starters, this morning was my last teaching Monday of all with my beloved students. Thankfully I will get to be their teacher until 17th April, which gives me some time to try and help them during the Easter break, but I’m afraid our lessons together will come to an end soon. On Friday, 3rd April 2020 at 12.15pm, I will officially never teach them again.

On a lighter note, I was incredibly thrilled to take my very first dance lesson via a Facebook live session that my beloved Dance Teacher generously set up. I’ve been dancing almost all my life, and moved so often that I can never quite recall the teachers I had in the past.

Last year I left again from France to London. This time things are a bit different with this one -wherever I go, whoever I meet, Marie-Line Lievin will always be my dance teacher. The one that made me a real dancer. If you ever meet someone like her, please never leave.

Woke up to the heartbreaking news that Spongebob, the Pineapple Pub’s local kitty in Kentish Town- had passed away this morning. His owners informed us via their Facebook page.

He was a beautiful white and ginger tom with sweet brown eyes, always extremely determined to take the longest possible nap on the quirkiest spots across the place. One of his favourites spots was reportedly the counter -maybe the reassuring proximity with so many varieties of liquids to drink from?

The first time I met him about two months ago on one of my regular visits was in the place’s beautiful conservatory. He didn’t seem to mind for the least that me and my friend “Ms Silva” had the intention to sit and eat our lunch right next to where he had then spread out his imposing tummy on the purple couch. On one occasion, he obliged us with some ear twitching as we daringly tried to attract his attention, and finally got the privilege to see that actual gentle, profound gaze of his.

It would have been extremely sad news otherwise, but one might be feeling even more compassionate with him and his owners who are already experiencing particularly uncertain and disrupting times as they had to close the doors of their beloved pub to locals like the rest of the UK. May their beautiful cat rest in peace, and may they find peace and support from their devoted customers posting their best moments with Spongebob.

The story led me to listen to “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones, inspired by Mikhail Bulganov’s The Master and Margarita which has an elephantine cat as one of its most prominent characters. Certainly a time for collective sympathy, indeed, forced on us by the Devil itself.

On another note, that song somehow managed to cheer me up and bring me back to a happy time -my husband’s birthday, which we celebrated wholeheartedly yesterday in spite of the imposed confinement. It was just a low-key, simple celebration with just a few tiny gifts, lots of great episodes from The Crown, and much laughter. Exactly like my man enjoys them…or so he reassuringly declared. 🙂