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José García knows very well what it is to fight to avoid a written destiny. Born in the Cádiz neighborhood of La Viña, his parents' efforts made it possible for him to go to the University and escape to the future marked by the postal code and which dragged some acquaintances onto the streets. At 45, he is a professor of Technology at the IES Francisco Romero Vargas, located in the southern part of Jerez de la Frontera, a complicated area, not at all easy for a teacher, but with a student body with whom he identifies and where each educational progress it is a great victory. A step towards a better life. Therefore, when he learned that one of his students could not follow classes after the state of alarm was decreed, he did not hesitate to pay him for the internet connection out of his pocket so as not to lose him. A situation derived from the new educational context that occurred due to the coronavirus pandemic and in which, in different ways, teachers operate after the temporary closure of schools and institutes. Thus they manage to teach the subjects.
"The first week of confinement was practically self - training . Search for programs to teach, learn to use and adapt to the characteristics of each subject," says García, who built a wooden structure, to which he attached a sports camera. , to be able to broadcast live the explanation of the exercises in your Technology class. A unique whiteboard that combines with computer resources such as Zoom -without any doubt, the application of confinement, because it allows up to a hundred simultaneous videoconferences-, Google Classroom or Moodle, recommended by Education, but whose management "is more complicated".
There is no common premise . The subject notably conditions the development of the class and the way of teaching it. José explains that there are history teachers who only need a webcam, while a colleague of hers uses a social network like Instagram to explain the lessons. Marcos Jiménez, 3rd and 4th Primary teacher at the CEIP Escultor César Molina Megías, in the Granada municipality of Churriana de la Vega, relies on tutorials , sends assignments by email and supervises their implementation, among many things What should they do. But everyone agrees that, after a couple of weeks of trial and error, and the prolonged state of alarm, "we have had to look for the potatoes" to meet the agenda.
Online education, the great paradigm of this reversal of the conventional educational system, has not only brought about a change in the teaching of subjects, it has also modified the preparation of classes and has extended teachers' hours beyond the usual schedule . Many people prepare videos or rehearse the lesson to be taught by videoconference the afternoon before, and the predisposition to adapt to the needs of the parents makes it almost impossible to disconnect.
Marcos, married and father of two children, remembers that "we are also a confined family." "I have to teach, correct, help my children, go shopping and take care of household chores," he says, before giving an example of how his daily life has changed: "I take advantage of the time when I walk the dogs to find homework to send to the students. " "I have the feeling that we dedicate more time to it and that it spreads much less."
Estefanía Segura, a teacher at CEIP Benyamina de Torremolinos (Málaga), agrees with her partner when stating that the days have become marathoners . 5th grade Primary teacher, reconciling work and family is a balance exercise that only achieves by stealing hours from sleep. "I get up early and take advantage of the fact that the children - she is the mother of three - are asleep to be able to record the videos for my students," she explains, and then warned that the needs for individual attention that this type of teaching requires slows down work. "In class, with an explanation you can solve the same question for five students; now, you must clarify it one by one."
Security, absenteeism and "computer poverty"
This new teaching context, in which electronic devices are an essential tool, generates dilemmas among some teachers, who address children who are in a privacy space such as their bedroom and who sometimes attend the virtual classroom in their pajamas. José García has established a protocol that strictly follows: "I ask you to connect the camera while I go through the list and, once I have finished and the class is going to start, you must turn it off and just leave the microphone on so that you can ask." Only during the exams is when this teacher requests that the videoconference not be interrupted. The scholar must take a photograph of the test result and send it to his teacher, who takes the necessary measures to avoid being deceived.
One of the main concerns of teachers is to avoid increasing absenteeism, which has transformed tutors into quasi-detectives trying to locate students who do not give signals. "They are doing a titanic job," says IES professor Francisco Romero Vargas, who acknowledges that he has lost track of "more than 50 of my students." "It has been three weeks since classes were suspended, and we are rescuing them dropper," he adds, to stress the difficulties they have in locating them. "Among the teachers we are asking ourselves, we consult classmates, we follow clues until we find some of them."
In the case of Primary, this phenomenon has little incidence, since it remarkably depends on the involvement of the parents. Estefanía points out that the protagonists of the episodes that are recorded are usually schoolchildren who carry a history of similar behaviors, such as a minor whose parents have not been able to locate since mid-January due to their continuous changes in phone number.
These cases can be conditioned by what José calls " computer poverty" . A concept that describes the difficulties that some students have in accessing the electronic devices necessary to follow classes. "Not all families have the same resources, the situation of each student is different," adds Marcos, who recounts the case of a small "with a great academic level" and who has difficulty following classes because at home they have a only connection system: a mobile phone, "shared by everyone and the data running out".
"I have the case of a boy whose parents are retired and only receive the non-contributory pension. He did not have a cell phone, a computer, or any other device, so a colleague gave him a tablet that he had at home so that he could continue classes. But we ran into the problem that he doesn't have an Internet connection either, "says the Secondary teacher, who came across the administration's filters to provide a solution for this student:" I asked the institute's management to facilitate access. to the Net, but the hiring process was so complex, that in the end I decided to pay it out of my pocket. " "He is a boy who attends class every day, who has interest and pays attention. He couldn't leave him lying," he unnecessarily justifies himself.
The lack of these means "widens the gap" between children who had more learning difficulties and the rest of the classroom, says the teacher from Granada.
Assimilation of content
But is this improvised teaching system effective? The assimilation of concepts will depend a lot on the commitment of the students. Marcos Jiménez points out that, for these students, "the smartphone is an extension of the hand", but warns that "it is very different to know how to use it to build learning". "I think that the proximity of the teacher is more effective. In the remote system there are many stimuli, but not all the juice is extracted from the matter." Estefanía Segura, for her part, has perceived that her students are more reflective and empathetic, impregnating her texts with the sensations aroused by the pandemic.
These teachers work to try to explain subjects in an imaginative way that engages the student. The first, for example, teaches Lengua con a chirigota about the coronavirus - "they have to do a dictation, a summary, identify adjectives ..." -, and their classmate from CEIP Benyamina, for her part, asks her schoolchildren to record videos recommending reading a book or performing tasks related to the impact of the pandemic, such as its influence on nature and the animal world.
However, the main concern for these teachers is the content and the lessons that can be left undisclosed. Primary school students confess that they feel less pressured in this regard, because they have already completed two school terms and in this educational stage it is easier to recover material as it is almost a continuous assessment. "At the end of the day are two months of his life. Surely it bothers them more not being able to make communion," jokes Marcos, while Estefanía explains that she has selected the simplest content and has advanced it, "in case we return in June explain in person the most complicated ones ".
The situation is much more complex in Secondary and Baccalaureate, where the difficulty of the subjects increases and in the immediate horizon Selectivity is visible. "I know that in the second year of Bachillerato they are very overwhelmed and worried. They are boys who have shown an interest in continuing to study, who want to pursue a university degree and who are going to play it in an exam that, today, they do not know how will it be ", says José García, who affirms that his classmates" have had to call the students of this course to calm ".
Doubts about how this course will end are extended by the teaching community. "We don't know anything," says the latter professor, "there is talk of a staggered return, but I wonder how this is going to be done in schools with 800 students and when a risky situation is still latent."
"If we return it is to close the course administratively," he adds, to raise another of the questions they will have to face: How to score the students? After the State School Council discarded the general pass , suppress the repetitions of the course and extend the school year until July, everything points to the fact that the weight of the final grade will fall on the first and second trimester and the general dynamics of the student.
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