What Teaching CEGEP Online Has Taught Me
Ever since I was little, I have had trouble sleeping the night before school starts. It was never because I was nervous, only because I was excited. I was one of those kids who happened to love school. It’s probably why I became a teacher.
This year was different. I couldn’t sleep because for the first time in my 34-year career at Marianopolis College. I was dreading going back to school. I was especially dreading teaching fully online — the situation for most CEGEP and university teachers this semester. Though I know I should be grateful that, unlike my colleagues who teach younger students, I’m able to work from home, I knew I’d miss everything I love most about my work. And those are, in many ways, the intangibles. How this time last year, a boy named Hou Han nodded and smiled on the first day of class when I talked about the value of curiosity. How some students linger after class, to ask questions or tell me something that isn’t always strictly about school. Even how I catch a kid texting — or looking longingly out the window on a sunny afternoon.
