15 min
Covid Crisis Check In The Teaching Space
-
- Self-Improvement
Here's a word for word transcript of the episode:
Introduction
------------
Hello. It's Martine here. Welcome to the Teaching Space podcast. This is a special episode. It doesn't have a number so hopefully that won't be too confusing when it comes to looking at your list of episodes. I wanted to record a special episode today and the date is Friday, the 3rd of April. I'll be releasing this episode today as well. I don't normally tell you the date that I'm recording because I bulk record my episodes and make no apology for that. It's a very efficient way for me to work. The plus side is it means that I'm able to get out a weekly podcast episode to you during term time. The downside of course is that when something major happens, it's often quite hard for me to give a timely comment, certainly through the medium of the podcast because I'm usually a month or six weeks ahead of myself.
Why I am Recording Today
------------------------
However, we are living in very strange times and I thought it would be rude of me not to perhaps just record a little audio message in response to what is happening with regard to the COVID crisis and the experiences that a lot of teachers are going through at the moment. I don't speak for every single teacher. I can only share my own experience, but I think what I can do is hopefully reassure you that you are doing your best at the moment. I know you are and I'm going to kind of dig into that a little bit in a moment. That's the plan, at any rate. It's not scripted, today's episode. I've not put any music on it because it is very much a special episode. That's the reason I'm talking to you today and releasing something quickly. There won't be any show notes, although I might upload a transcript at a later date. That remains to be seen. I'll decide on that later.
You are Doing Your Best
-----------------------
As I said, the main reason for wanting to record something is to reassure you that you are doing great. You are doing your best and I know you are because I follow a lot of you on Twitter and I see what you're up to and I think one of the biggest challenges that I've experienced both personally and in talking to other teachers on social media and I was going to say face to face then. I don't mean face to face, you know what I mean. But there's a real sense amongst some people that they want to do more and they're really pushing themselves to do more. But actually I think it needs to be the other way around in a way. Certainly from a teaching and learning perspective, we need to lower some expectations and I'm going to dig into that again in a second.
Follow the Rules - Save Lives
-----------------------------
But you need to remember, I need to remember, we all need to remember that actually the massive thing that you are doing at the moment, the massive difference you're making is staying at home and following hygiene rules and social distancing. These things, following the rules are making a huge difference. In fact they're saving lives and sometimes we just need someone else to remind us that that's doing loads and that's fantastic and we should be happy that we're doing that.
Guernsey Update
---------------
I'll just do a very quick update on Guernsey in case you're interested. Guernsey's a very small island, our population's 63,000 or something like that and we have in the region of a 110 cases of the virus at the moment. And as I said, I'm recording on the third of April. We've had two deaths, I'm sad to say. If you think about the numbers of people who live on the island and compare that sort of ratio to the UK, I guess it looks like we're doing very well. We locked down the island and closed our borders and had a strict lockdown policy very early. We've been in lockdown for a week and I'm very proud of the way my island's government has responded to this situation. And hopefully we will benefit from that and I appreciate I'm a lot better off and we are a lot better off
Here's a word for word transcript of the episode:
Introduction
------------
Hello. It's Martine here. Welcome to the Teaching Space podcast. This is a special episode. It doesn't have a number so hopefully that won't be too confusing when it comes to looking at your list of episodes. I wanted to record a special episode today and the date is Friday, the 3rd of April. I'll be releasing this episode today as well. I don't normally tell you the date that I'm recording because I bulk record my episodes and make no apology for that. It's a very efficient way for me to work. The plus side is it means that I'm able to get out a weekly podcast episode to you during term time. The downside of course is that when something major happens, it's often quite hard for me to give a timely comment, certainly through the medium of the podcast because I'm usually a month or six weeks ahead of myself.
Why I am Recording Today
------------------------
However, we are living in very strange times and I thought it would be rude of me not to perhaps just record a little audio message in response to what is happening with regard to the COVID crisis and the experiences that a lot of teachers are going through at the moment. I don't speak for every single teacher. I can only share my own experience, but I think what I can do is hopefully reassure you that you are doing your best at the moment. I know you are and I'm going to kind of dig into that a little bit in a moment. That's the plan, at any rate. It's not scripted, today's episode. I've not put any music on it because it is very much a special episode. That's the reason I'm talking to you today and releasing something quickly. There won't be any show notes, although I might upload a transcript at a later date. That remains to be seen. I'll decide on that later.
You are Doing Your Best
-----------------------
As I said, the main reason for wanting to record something is to reassure you that you are doing great. You are doing your best and I know you are because I follow a lot of you on Twitter and I see what you're up to and I think one of the biggest challenges that I've experienced both personally and in talking to other teachers on social media and I was going to say face to face then. I don't mean face to face, you know what I mean. But there's a real sense amongst some people that they want to do more and they're really pushing themselves to do more. But actually I think it needs to be the other way around in a way. Certainly from a teaching and learning perspective, we need to lower some expectations and I'm going to dig into that again in a second.
Follow the Rules - Save Lives
-----------------------------
But you need to remember, I need to remember, we all need to remember that actually the massive thing that you are doing at the moment, the massive difference you're making is staying at home and following hygiene rules and social distancing. These things, following the rules are making a huge difference. In fact they're saving lives and sometimes we just need someone else to remind us that that's doing loads and that's fantastic and we should be happy that we're doing that.
Guernsey Update
---------------
I'll just do a very quick update on Guernsey in case you're interested. Guernsey's a very small island, our population's 63,000 or something like that and we have in the region of a 110 cases of the virus at the moment. And as I said, I'm recording on the third of April. We've had two deaths, I'm sad to say. If you think about the numbers of people who live on the island and compare that sort of ratio to the UK, I guess it looks like we're doing very well. We locked down the island and closed our borders and had a strict lockdown policy very early. We've been in lockdown for a week and I'm very proud of the way my island's government has responded to this situation. And hopefully we will benefit from that and I appreciate I'm a lot better off and we are a lot better off
15 min