My name is Barbara. I am a primary school teacher in Rome, Italy, at the Institute Padre Semeria– Principe di Piemonte, one of the few public schools set within a park. This location allows us to do a lot of outdoor teaching. I teach Italian, history, technology, psychomotricity, music and civic education. My students are 10 years old (grade 5).

My experience in distance teaching began in 2010 with video lessons, live from my class, for children being treated for cancer at the IFO Hospital in Rome. I also use computers and mobile phones with my students at school.

I even have my own TV space on RAI1 during a show called "Uno mattina in famiglia" (“A morning with family”), where I talk about how I teach, which I am now using to explain distance learning.

Getting everyone online

The news of Covid-19 was so sudden that it had us stunned at first. Nevertheless, we immediately started activating various platforms to be ready to provide distance learning. As soon as I received the authorization from the Ministry of Education, my school manager and consent from my students’ families, I started distance teaching with my class.

The process was not a smooth one though. To organize connections from home with pupils we use several platforms: ZOOM, the online class register AXIOS, EDMODO, Hub class and Google classroom. We luckily were able to get help from a digitally skilled father for some of the platforms set-ups!

The Ministry also allocated funds for teacher training and my school manager organized the various activities together with the "digital animator" to connect with our students and start teaching.

A first platform meeting was organized with our students’ parents where everyone was encouraged to share their doubts, concerns and problems in order to create an internal functional organization for families on the management of spaces and IT tools.

The sharing and cooperation with every teacher was fundamental in constructing the organizational plan, even more so in adapting it to each and everyone’s personal ability as well considering the students’ emotional well-being.

E-teaching activities

We try to maintain a sense of schedule. The whole class participates in video sessions in the morning at the same time 10.30 / 13. Teachers are always present to make the video lessons as similar as possible to those in the classroom. We write the timetable of the different subjects ourselves to be more organized. And when it comes to children with learning difficulties, the support teacher is also still present to assign and follow personalized tasks to the students even now that we are distance learning. We also have the possibility to connect to the platforms whenever we want.

My teacher team worked on the AXIOS online registry and the EDMODO platform where the homework assigned to the class are posted and where the students upload their homework. The work is based on the topics already covered in the classroom, reviewing concepts with the use of downloadable online materials such as worksheets, adapted from textbooks made available by the publishing houses and special Apps offering interactive exercises and quizzes.

The children use the platforms autonomously to exchange information, study, play, or work on creative projects together. For example, they made cards for Father's Day and shot a video to welcome the first day of spring.

We also try to maintain extra-curricular activities for our students. We created virtual Cineforum meetings and one afternoon a week we watch themed films all together and then work on writing narrative texts. We also do virtual tours inside Museums. We have connect to play and sing the arias of the opera L'Elisir d'Amore for the Opera Theater Project.

Objectives and results

The work is carried out respecting the children’s well-being. Most of them were immediately at ease with using computers, tablets and cellphones. We have even seen that children with learning difficulties seem more motivated and confident in their work.

I have noted that children with video lessons are more involved, motivated and ready every morning for lessons and we are happy by recreating the same environment and activities as in the classroom. Even virtually, the community aspect of our learning method is highlighted, where everyone helps everyone.

We have seen that daily training produces great results in terms of autonomy, self-regulation, self-assessment and problem solving by the children. This will also be useful when we return to school. However, as far as the evaluation and assessments of students goes, we teachers are following the indications received from the Minister of Education.

It has been a challenge but I feel it is producing good results.

Research and experimentation

We have also started studying the impact of distance learning on students. This research is conducted by Prof. Margherita Orsolini from the Faculty of Psychology and Developmental Pedagogy of La Sapienza University. We use the APISMELA, a training package of activities stimulating attention, cognitive control and flexibility, verbal working memory she designed.

As this constitutes a new way of virtual group training, and is the first time the method is used with a whole classroom, the lessons are recorded and will be studied and analyzed to see what implications this method has on students’ learning outcomes, especially students with learning difficulties.

Barbara Riccardi

Barbara Riccardi was one of the finalists of the Varkey Foundation's Global Teacher Prize.

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This piece is part of the Teacher Task Force’s #TeachersVoices campaign, created to bring forward the experiences of teachers working every day to ensure their students continue to benefit from a quality education despite the COVID-19 pandemic. To participate, go to our dedicated webpage.

I'm Hannah Grieves and I’ve been teaching spoken and written English to first- and second-year University students at the Shandong University of Business and Technology in Yantai, China for the past 8 years.

Cut-off from the World We Knew

We’d heard about the virus in Wuhan, but it wasn’t until shortly before Spring Festival that we realised the enormity of the situation. Initially people in Yantai were cautious, but not especially concerned. We’re pretty far from Wuhan, we reasoned, so we’ll probably be okay. Let’s buy a few more jars of peanut butter just in case. Then we heard the news about lockdowns across the country, and soon we saw guards at the entrance to our community. Our temperatures were taken when we entered the supermarket and, before long, we were told we would have to register to even leave our community. It was so unlike anything we’d ever experienced before. China is usually busy, full of life, and above all noisy. Suddenly the streets were empty, there were no children playing out and it was quiet. Eerily quiet. We started to feel anxious and uncertain about what to do next.

Zooming around the Country

Our school didn’t have much time to make plans. A week before we were due to start classes, we got a message telling us that we would have to teach our students online for the next couple of weeks. A friend at a bigger university in Shanghai told us that they had been instructed to prepare for four weeks. We thought there was no chance it would be that long, but we got ready just in case.

It’s now week 5 and our students don’t think they’ll be back until the end of April at the earliest, and that’s assuming China isn’t hit by a second wave of the virus. Most of the Chinese staff are using platforms such as Tencent and QQ to run their courses, but most of the foreigners offering speaking classes opted to use Zoom. A huge part of my course focuses on pronunciation of individual sounds and it’s crucial that I not only hear my students but can see them too, so that I can see where in their mouths they’re making the sound and help them make any adjustments.

Just like many other teachers, I hadn’t taught online before and had never tried to chat with a whole class on video call, but to my great surprise it works pretty well. In many ways, it’s been exciting getting to know my students in their home environments – it’s opened up many conversations that might not have happened under normal circumstances. Students can show me their homes, tell me about the foods they’re eating, and discuss how their communities are dealing with the virus. We’re getting to know each other in new ways.

Reaching Out Online

As teachers, I think we often feel like we should know exactly what we’re doing, but when faced with something so new I felt completely out of my depth – how would I cope with any technical issues? How would I make sure my students still feel like they’re learning? How could I make my classes engaging without really being able to read the room? Like many others, I reached out online and thankfully stumbled across the Facebook group “Educator Temporary School Closure for Online Learning” set up by Kirsten Durward. I had found help! So did countless others. It grew and grew and is still growing. There are breakout groups for just about every subject, location, age group, and interest, as well as units to teach people how to use different platforms like Zoom, Seesaw, Google Classroom and Flipgrid. Despite having spent the last nine weeks at home with just my husband and two small children, I feel like I have more support than ever before.

Ask for Help and it Will Come

In some countries the problems caused by the pandemic are only just beginning and I know that the effects will be wide reaching and hard to overcome, but educators should know this: ask for help and it will come.

Your colleagues across the world are ready to support you – to offer you help and hope. You are not alone. In the midst of the unknown one thing is certain: teaching will never be the same again. It will be better. How can it not be when there is a whole community of teachers, educators, counsellors, administrators, and experts in just about every field who are reaching out and offering their help to anyone who needs it?

It’s been a real privilege getting to know my new colleagues across the globe and to see the wonderful things that are happening in their online classrooms. I am proud to be part of such an incredible movement of teachers who care, not only for their students, but for their students’ families, their wider communities and colleagues worldwide.

Hannah Grieves

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This piece is part of the Teacher Task Force’s #TeachersVoices campaign, created to bring forward the experiences of teachers working every day to ensure their students continue to benefit from a quality education despite the COVID-19 pandemic. To participate, go to our dedicated webpage.

My name is Michelle, I live in Bangkok, Thailand.I teach Grade 10 English Language Acquisition and co-teach Grade 7 Individuals Societies. I am also a Service Club adviser.My students' ages range from 12 to 16 years old.

Life as an international teacher requires you to be incredibly flexible as you move between countries, cultures, and schools. However, nothing has required as much of a willingness to adapt and evolve my practice as being locked in my apartment and having to reinvent my approach to the classroom.

Teaching digitally has been much easier than I anticipated. To be honest, it has pushed my practice and approach to the classroom ahead in more ways than I can count, and the effects are still mounting. I am grateful for that - silver linings! But there are brewing storm clouds too.

The Slow Unraveling

I’ve been locked in my apartment for 2 weeks with at least a month to go according to the last update from the government. I have one of my daughters here with me and we are trying to keep each other distracted between our classes. Most of our friends and loved ones are in other countries and the sense of being absolutely alone creeps in unexpectedly at times. I don’t know when I will see my oldest daughter again and I can’t protect her from half the world away. Then this morning the call came that my mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, has been put into ICU with pneumonia, a mass in her lungs, and may have Covid19.

I can’t imagine how afraid or lonely she must feel. Even if I could get a flight from Bangkok to Houston, I wouldn’t be allowed in the hospital to see her. We, like so many, are locked down and unable to reach each other. I think that is the largest stress inducer for me – all control of this situation is out of my hands.

Until she became ill, there was no one thing that has been overly difficult, but concerns for the people I love, nonstop news updates, school emails, student messages laced with anxiety and fear, and learning new platforms and tech solutions all are adding up. As a teacher, it is hard to swallow the total lack of control over anything around me. The inability to create an entirely safe space for my students, daughters, or even myself. Below I’ve shared what has been helping me brave the storm. I hope you find something here that helps you too.

Advice from Lockdown

Relax

Take a deep breath and remember that no matter what, you are still the amazing teacher you were before your school closed. You will continue to be that teacher and your stress and worry for how you will keep teaching today is proof that you are dedicated and committed to reaching your students.

Start over

Your students are not only adapting to your new class and ways of digital teaching. They are also adapting to every other teacher they have and their new systems. Treat the first week like the first week of any school year. Teach expectations, set boundaries, get to know your kids in this new way, find a new balance and a new norm.

Slow down

The biggest surprise to me was how little work my students were able to accomplish in the same amount of time. Even if I kept them in Zoom with me to complete something, they fumbled and struggled to get the task done. We take it for granted that they are digital wizards because they live on their devices all day. They don’t have any more experience at this than we do, and they need time.

Laser Focus

Look at your lessons and decide what the most important things are for your students to master and keep your focus on those critical components. Add in the rest if you have time, but lock a laser focus on the heart of the topics and achieve those goals first.

Walk away

Do not let yourself fall into the trap of confusing down time and work time. Just because you moved your work to your home, doesn’t mean it should dominate your life. You and your students need you at peak mental and emotional health right now. Take breaks, walk away, and don’t let this overtake every part of your life. You are living in this crisis too. You have mental, emotional, and physical needs too. See to them first so you have something left to give to your students when you hit week 3, 6, or 10 of school closures. Locked down? Have a Zoom game night or dinner with friends. Take walks. Have a life. You need it to sustain you.

Reach out

Remember you are not alone. Most teachers are in the same situation you are and we are all just figuring it out. Join a group where you can find resources and advice from other teachers like Educator Temporary School Closure Community. Don’t just Zoom with your students, have check-ins with your co-workers to see what they are doing. Don’t feel as if you are the only one struggling. We are all adapting and coming together like never before.

Lean in

In the end we will all come out of this as better teachers with countless hours of self-study professional development from all the new systems we are adapting to. So find your fellow teachers and learn from them, teach them, and stand strong. Show your students what it really looks like to embrace a life-long love of learning and take them on the journey with you.

Michelle Overman

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This piece is part of the Teacher Task Force’s #TeachersVoices campaign, created to bring forward the experiences of teachers working every day to ensure their students continue to benefit from a quality education despite the COVID-19 pandemic. To participate, go to our dedicated webpage.

Isabella Kituyi, 39, is a teacher at Kimwanga Special School for the Hearing impaired. Before receiving training as part of VSO’s Community Empowerment for Deaf Inclusion (CEDI), she had scraped by for years without any training in sign language or in meeting the different needs of children with disabilities.

Isabella explains how the training is improving her teaching, as well as challenging negative local attitudes towards children with hearing impairments. 

On my first day at Kimwanga Special School for the Hearing Impaired, I looked at the pupils and I questioned myself: Will I manage? And if I don’t, what will I do then? What if I lose my job? I had nothing in my head to prepare me for this work, no training or knowledge of Kenyan Sign Language (KSL).

But I was encouraged by the head teacher. She told me that the best teacher is these children themselves. By becoming comfortable with them, I would come to know some of the signs. I was interested and I was committed to teaching, so I kept on trying.

I used to use non-professional signing to get my message across even for basic things like wanting them to sit or eat. But after my training with VSO I am now able to use proper KSL to communicate with them.

It makes me happy whenever parents come to school to tell us that thanks to my teaching students are now able to better express themselves back at home. This is really motivating and gives me a reason to keep on with what I am doing.

Many people in the community view this job as a waste of time. They look at our young ones, think that we are giving out something that is not supposed to be given to them. They see these children as people who are already wasted. They are not valuable in the community. So they see us teachers as wasting our time here, doing nothing.

The negative perception that people have of these young ones deeply saddens me. I wish to see a time where they will see them as normal human beings who only have a different way of communicating their thoughts.

That is why I have taken a personal responsibility to educate the community around me about them – it is my hope that someday they will be appreciated and not discriminated against. As for me, I am not giving up on them no matter what people’s thoughts are- they are my main motivation.

Thanks to training, I am courageous and now even in church I talk to people and show them the benefit of us loving these pupils – or anyone – who is hearing impaired. So in the communities where I come from, they now know that a person with an impairment is just a normal person like them.

That has encouraged some of the parents who were hiding their hearing deaf children at home. Now they look for me wherever I am. VSO gave us a book for KSL communication – I invite these parents and show them the book. Two of my neighbours are deaf, I am also teaching them KSL.

We have got so many challenges in our school –uncountable. Our pupils come from far, so you may come to school and meet only one child, or none, because of the distance. These children come from poor families. They need support from us, even food. Sometimes they tell you, ‘Miss, yesterday I slept without eating, so I cannot concentrate.’

It forces us teachers to dip into our own pockets, to be able to provide some food for them so that they can be motivated and have energy to learn. It is hard on my salary – I am not comfortable. Sometimes I cannot afford transport to school so I walk for one hour to reach here from my place.

I get to school at 7.30am. I do cleanliness and health check-ups with those pupils who have already arrived. Some children come from homes without water, so I wash their faces.

We have only two classrooms. In my class are four streams together at once, class zero to four. There are effectively four lessons going on at once: we just have to divide the blackboard into four. So teaching becomes a problem – it is very hard for the pupils to concentrate.

In the school, all our children have hearing impairments. I also have three hearing children with learning disabilities, and one girl with intellectual impairment. This makes teaching difficult because those with additional disabilities may refuse to participate.

Handling these children is the hardest thing about the job. You want to attend to them, but you cannot always understand them. You want to ask a question, instead you get a slap. That is very difficult. But since training, I feel empathy because these children are just the same as normal children, but because of the impairment it may affect their actions. I sympathise with them.

People from outside should try and have a positive attitude towards our children who are hearing impaired – or towards anyone who has a disability.  If they have that positive attitude they will keep on assisting them, knowing that they are just normal beings like others.

Despite the challenges, I still say being a teacher is the best. I can interact with anyone, anywhere, and in whichever situation, because I have handled these young ones.

This story in published in partnership with VSO International for #WorldTeachersDay. It was originally published on VSO International's website. 

Josephine Nyirampuha, 28, is an early grade teacher in Nibori village, in Nyamasheke district, Rwanda. Her classroom is a wooden hut with a mud floor and no furniture, in which she tries to equip 58 local children with quality early childhood education (ECE). She receives no government salary, surviving on school fees paid by those parents who can afford to in this, one of the poorest districts in the country.

Rwanda has prioritised upgrading the quality of ECE in hopes of reducing rates of repetition at primary school. Currently only around one in five children receives pre-primary schooling. A new ECE teacher training curriculum, developed with the support of VSO is being embedded with the help of VSO volunteers on the EQUECER-II project. Volunteers work in teacher training colleges as well as with in-service teachers like Josephine, many of whom had never had any professional training in early childhood development beforehand.

Before I was a teacher, children in this community could not go to school because schools are very far located. I had graduated from Urugero [Rwanda’s national voluntary service] after secondary school. This room had been built by local parents who asked me to help them teach their children. That was three years ago.

Where I am teaching, there are only children from very poor families. Those are well to do take their children to better schools. Most families do not even send their children to pre-primary school as they can’t afford to provide school food and fees.

The number of children in my class has steadily increased. Today it is 58.

It is very difficult. Every parent should pay 500RWF per month. But when it is the end of the month, it is very possible that only one parent has brought this money.

Each month I earn 12,000RWF [£12] at most. When I get a little money I can buy sugar or soap. I can’t say it is enough because I don’t have enough money to buy shoes. I am always patient and hopeful that things will change.

I keep going because I have passion for teaching. This is a noble position and I like it. Sometimes you ask yourself why the government doesn’t support us more. Even some parents seem not to give it much value.

But some parents do come to thank me. Those are the ones that have noticed the difference between the performance of their children that I have taught, and those who have not got this basic education.

VSO volunteers showed me how to create locally made teaching and learning materials. Before this training I had to ask the head teacher to borrow books. Sometimes I would only have one book for the whole class so I would draw pictures.

Now we know how to teach with these local materials and to make learning corners. I like thinking of things I can make for the children using these discarded materials. Some bottle tops can be a counting game. A rice sack can become the costume for a moto driver. The button helps develop fine motor skills, and the role play helps with socialising and introducing concepts of counting and money.

Before starting class, I have to motivate the children using a song. I make them my best friends so that they can respect my instructions.

My teaching has improved because now students are learning by doing, which makes them better understand the lesson. The children are very active and involved. They study reading, mathematics and social studies.

I use songs to motivate them, and make them my best friends so that they can respect my instructions. We have a great team spirit. The change in my students’ performance is super, so I feel good.

This story is published in partnership with VSO International for #WorldTeachersDay. It was originally published on VSO International's website.

Grace Chigwechokha, 41, is a dedicated Standard 2 teacher at Chiuzimbi Primary School in Lilongwe, Malawi. She loves teaching – but struggles with the impossible task of educating a class of 84 children ranging in age from six to 14 years old.  She is frustrated by the challenge of trying to deliver quality education in a context of huge class sizes, scant resources and rampant absenteeism.

Grace explains what it’s really like to work as a teacher in Malawi, and her experiences since becoming involved in VSO’s Unlocking Talent project. She is responsible for the running of a solar-powered learning centre, equipped with special digital education software, provided as part of the scheme.

When I was at school my favourite teacher was Mrs Mmangeni. I remember it was easy to learn with her and that she wore very beautiful clothes. She was like a role model for me. Now that is what I try to be for my learners.

I love teaching. I do this work because I want to build up Malawian children to be all they can be, but it’s difficult because I have so many learners in the class. Last term I had 84 in standard 2, ranging in age from six to 14 years old.

Sometimes as you are trying to teach some children are beating each other, others are standing, or moving around.  It’s a tough job. The children all have different abilities. Being the only teacher in the class is a very big problem, because I can’t give every child individual help.

I am trying my best. For example, I have one boy in the class with hearing difficulties. I try to keep him at the front of the class so he has a better chance of hearing and seeing everything. But I know that not every child is receiving the best education – I don’t feel good about that. I want my learners to do well.

Many children repeat class because they do not do well in exams. To progress to the next grade, they have to get at least 50% of the marks on an exam. Last time only 49 out of 84 got enough questions right to continue. The rest are back in my class again this year.

There is also the problem of absenteeism in the school. Some parents keep their older children at home when they go away on business, asking them to stay behind to take care of their sisters and brothers. Teachers too are sometimes missing. When teachers are sick or absent, there is no one to take over their class while they are away.

That’s why I’m so happy about being part of Unlocking Talent. I can see my learners are able to read and write, and the absenteeism has also been reduced – they don’t want to miss the classes. Even those with troublesome behaviour have changed.

As Unlocking Talent co-ordinator it’s my responsibility to look after the maintenance of the learning centres [purpose-built rooms equipped with tablet computers with special digital education software]. I make sure they are kept clean and tidy, that the children use it correctly and that the materials are well looked after.

It is good to learn from VSO volunteers. To be a teacher I had two years of training. One year in a teacher training college and a year of theory – that was in 1994 and I haven’t had training since. Though I have been teaching for more than 20 years I am still on the first grade of being a teacher. The salary for my grade is 79,000 Kwacha (£81) per month. It is not a lot of money – living in Lilongwe is expensive. It can cost 50,000 kwacha to rent a house.

Of course I would like to be promoted to the next grade and earn more. Since 2015 I am the head of the theology department. That should qualify me for the next grade, but I would need to complete my education to degree-level first. The fees for that are 350,000 Kwacha (£364).

I am married and have three children of my own, aged 21, 17 and 14. My youngest is now in Senior Form 2. I am sending him to a private school. I want my children to have the best. School fees are 90,000 Kwacha (£93) per term, the uniform is another 40,000 (£41), and there are registration fees. So you see my salary does not go very far. As I am trying to do what’s best for my children, I decided it is better to fund their education and stop mine.

My first born is now a journalist. She has completed a diploma and is doing a work placement with a multimedia organisation. She has not yet completed a degree – again fees are a challenge. I am proud of her.

I love the children in my class. It is my role to talk to them, to encourage them to work extra hard so they can become better people. I’m proud of that.

I encourage each and every person to become a teacher, or to support us in our work. This is a good job. We build up children to be important people so they can go work in companies, organisations and government. It is a big role.

This story in published in partnership with VSO International. This story was originally published on VSO International's website.