As you may all know by now, I am an online teacher. I work for an online/virtual school. I am a real teacher with a teacher degree, and I have 23 years teaching experience. I have always enjoyed working with kids, so 27 years ago, I decided to become a teacher. In the beginning of my career I learned a lot about children's behavior, and I was popular with the kids in my class. I am a very open minded person, and kids came to me with all their issues. Parent issues, teenage issues, and love and hate issues, so basically I was the local children-psychologist at the school. I had the opportunity to teach my own children and they grew up in front of me, while I had my eye on them at school. I was really happy and enjoyed living in our little town. Then things changed.
My husband was transferred to a different town, and I could not find a job as a teacher. I tried to get a transfer but the department of Education did not have any teaching positions open in the area we moved to. I had no other choice than to quit my job and move.
Don't let anyone tell you that there is a shortage of teachers in South-Africa! We then decided that I was going to stay at home for a year or two to spend some quality time with my kids.
Well....that lasted for about 3 months. My husband worked a lot because he had to find his feet in his new position. That nearly drove me crazy. I suddenly lived in a new town. I did not know anyone and with my husband working all the time, we did not have time to go out and meet people. The fact that we live in a town at the coast also did not help. The beaches were crowded. We could not do a lot of sight seeing because everywhere we went it was crowded.
So we stayed at home. It was a real challenging time in my life!
I threw away my forced dream of just staying at home, and decided that job hunting would be my new hobby. I started searching online. As if it was meant to be, I found the perfect company and I emailed them. I went for an interview and the rest is old news. I am now the Head of education at my school and we have approximately 800 students worldwide.
Teaching an online class, is slightly different than teaching in a normal class situation. I never thought that this was possible, but I have found the same satisfaction teaching online than to teach a student in a normal brick and mortar class. Who would've thought that this was even a possibility?
Can you even imagine going to school in your pajamas? (I think most of our students do) :)
So let me tell you a little bit about how online schooling works.
All students sign up on via an online form. Their information is dragged in to the platform. Invoices are created, sent out and voila, they receive their welcome letter and log in details. They now have access to their own platform where they can open the calendar to find their timetable. We as teachers load all the work for the daily subjects onto a digital calendar. Students can download the work for class, and either print or work online. Students then log in to their class.
When I log in, I usually switch off the audio otherwise it is a little bit too noisy, because they chat and play music and make jokes just like in an normal school. (Until I am in class.) Then the teaching begins. Normal old fashioned teaching, where the teacher talks and the students listen. From all the schools where I worked, I definitely like this one the best.
Gone are the dirty classes, kids, moving tables, and paper throwing. NO PEA-SHOOTERS, no interruptions from students! I have a digital board where I can upload pictures, write, explain Maths and import videos. Just like in a normal school. We still make jokes in class, and we still talk. We can have long discussions in my class about the weirdest topics, and I do believe that I love those kids.
But how can I love someone I have never actually seen? Kids are the same everywhere. Whether they are in front of you or behind your computer screen. Kids are just kids. All races, all colors and all religions. All those things do not change children. They are still the same, and guess what, I am still the school psychologist. I just do the counseling virtually now.
For the last three years I have taught these kids, without once meeting any of them. Not one. Except for my own of course. These students respect me as a teacher. I believe that this is the best method of education possible. ( Catch me tomorrow when I write about discipline in online classes)
