Weekly Lesson: The Return to Education

For study until 8th of September 2024

Subject: The Return to Education

Audio: On usual social media platforms

Deciding to go back to study at University sounded enthralling. It brought back memories of Education when I was younger. Being part of something, a time when we all knew for sure we were loved and affirmed by forming deeper friendships.

 As I work in the Education sector, I am very aware of the changing face of teaching but this was going to be interesting. To be on the other side of the classroom for a change, not the one in front of the class. It came as a bit of a shock to find that “Campus life” was simply online.  Opening a new tab on my browser is hardly the same as bursting through the University doors wearing too much aftershave and white socks in 1987.  

My first day arrived and I was feeling intrepid. It was something of a relief to find an Internet room full of middle-aged cynical bitter looking faces staring at me. I was expecting teenagers.  Arriving into an Internet video chat is like changing a TV channel, you give it a few seconds to gauge what it’s like before you feel altogether settled and you are immediately hit with feelings but you don’t quite know what they are  yet.

I am no stranger to Internet chats, but this was one of the few times I was in a room full of native speakers – that was a bit of a game changer.  The balance of power felt different – these people had years of experience of judging others and there was no language barrier to protect me from that.  I felt like I was being X-rayed and anxiously awaiting the results. For the first time in a long time, I was vulnerable in an online learning environment.

 The song “Forever Young” by Alphaville played in my mind.  Jeez, they were more cynical than I was – this was not about having fun, for them, they were more concerned about funding.  Their online background scenery was interesting, some people lying in bed, others sitting on the sofa, some empty chairs and a few with cameras turned off. Was this really the new definition of diversity at University?

I’d forgotten how much American Psychology had crept in over the years. The Tutors had been told to tell us one exciting fact about their personal lives.  I really didn’t care who had driven a tank through a desert or who makes kitsch medieval tapestries when they aren’t out walking dogs. My mind drifted, Forever Young played in my head again as I remembered the first day of University the first time round. I was studying Theology and Philosophy back then, we should in theory have been very well behaved kids with such a serious subject but we weren’t, we were crazy maladjusted kids with a tutor who looked like a relic from the Dark ages. Riding brightly coloured cars, wearing crazy hats and listening to Elton John defined us, we were teenagers.

 I was quickly brought down to earth again with a thump when another student asked me the  question:

“Tell us something about yourself Joseph?”

“I’m an avid traveller” I quipped looking around the screen to see who was listening. Most of them were busy surfing the web – I doubt the answer even registered with them “and happily married” I quickly added. That last comment got the attention of a few people and clearly raised a few eyebrows.

“Great”, she cackled voraciously.

“My first husband was like you…. Not the happily married bit, I mean…. He travelled” while she took another puff of the cigarette and then stubbed it out in the ashtray, blowing smoke in the air…..

“What about you Sonia?” she said in a loud gritty voice moving her head around the screen to her next victim.

“Oh by the way, are all of our lectures  on Fridays?  I have the grandchildren the  rest of the week” she chortled.

 No one else seemed to care except for one woman who kept sending me private messages to help her find stuff on the Uni. website while asking questions about MS Teams. I’d forgotten how my role in group situations is always the “helper”. There to bring a bit of calm to panicking hysterical women.

“We can meet after class” I quipped – “just like last time”.  We had previously met online at the intro. sessions a few days before…. Suzanne was an interesting person, she carried an immense sense of  tragedy and didn’t have a clue about computers.  Just like the kind of women who always seem to find special places in my English classes by booking lots of packages and then self-predicting that they will never pass exams. Then there were the others who kept asking me about times of lectures. I’m not sure what bit of “its all online – there are no lectures” that they couldn’t understand.  Yes, I grappled with that as well, we just had to like it or lump it – we read, write and then submit things.  

Like it or lump it – this was indeed University for older people, fun meant going for blood tests and Covid vaccines.

 Like it or lump it was always the preferred idiom in my family growing up and it simply means “take it or leave it”.  It is one of those phrases that you can hear everywhere, especially when there is little choice in a decision which has to be made.  My mother used to say – “you are having potatoes for dinner like it or lump it… you don’t want them? Fine, you can lump it then”. (in other words, starve).

The one curious thing was how the tutors kept pleading with us to attend lectures:

“I know we are all busy but can we please try to get to lectures? You will struggle if you don’t…”

That was repeated many times and I remembered the countless times I waited for students who weren’t going to appear online for English classes.  I don’t plead anymore, I’m kind of past that stage.  

My mind drifted again and I remembered how middle aged teachers feel like parents sometimes but not with this crowd. Walking sticks, crutches and doctors appointments meant that I wasn’t about to find myself cruising through the streets in brightly coloured cars this time, this was post middle age – cruising up to the local Doctor’s surgery is as good as it gets. For some people here the best years of their lives had quickly become the last years of their lives. I was one of the youngest and as such expected to be the IT expert of the room.

 I was no longer the English teacher around here, I was the baby.