Kamal Ghorui
This is just an old tale, seasoned with a new spice. The old tale being that the other day, a student of mine had an examination coming up – a phenomenon dating back to the beginning of education. The new spice is that she expected me to pull an all-nighter with her, online.
We had been preparing for her exam and she was all set – until her school teacher asked her to change her topic at the last minute. It started in the morning when I saw a number of missed calls and a few frantic messages, informing me about this. So, we came up with another topic that was pretty close to the earlier one and needed minimal changes. I gave her all the new points of analysis and sent her some notes – enough to come up with another essay. It was decided that she would write it and send it to me for approval.
I thought that was that.
Until the calls started, at 9.30 pm. Followed by messages, asking me to conduct an online class for her as she needed help right away. I told her it wasn’t possible since I had guests over.
I thought that was that.
Until her mother flew into the act, from 10 pm onwards. The messages rolled in. “Requesting you to please give her 30 minutes” at 10.10 pm. Ending with, “I am sorry to message you so late but she really needs help right now” at 11.40 pm. Meanwhile, my student kept up the pressure for a midnight class, finally just sending me a message saying “?” at 1 am, by when I had put my phone on silent to escape the barrage. I found six deleted messages too, deleted at 3 am, when I woke up with a blazing headache the next morning. I wonder what she had written in those… though perhaps I think it is better that I don’t know!
I thought that was that.
But the next morning there were more messages, this time about how difficult it was for her due to the last-minute change of topic, and how I could have helped. In other words, how I could have taken an online class at midnight!
Yes. I put my foot down, talked about professional and personal boundaries and informed them that I like to sleep at 10 pm. (Not that all my waking hours belong to my students, anyway.)
And perhaps, that is the point. The point is that tutors are not AI companions.
It is important to talk about teacher wellbeing today. It involves the physical, mental and emotional health of educators, which is so very essential for reducing burnout. Needless to say, this automatically improves teaching quality and student results. It is important to talk about self-care, manageable workloads and humane working hours. And a basic strategy here is to set boundaries. Online classes seem to have blurred these boundaries. Since it is online, it has become just about switching on the computer (not too much trouble after all). But it is time to reclaim those boundaries now.
The argument is always that “I don’t ask all the time, please just do it this time.” (By the way, the same student often says the same thing again, after a week.) And if all my students say this, it pretty much becomes crazy working hours almost every day, since most students are pressured and have crises once a week.
I usually tell my students that if planned ahead, they can have an extra class before exams. But “if planned ahead” remains illusory. In reality, most often extra classes are demanded at the last minute. And since most youngsters are night owls, these classes are demanded at odd hours – just when I am nodding off.
P.S: Hey, whatever happened to teachers calling the shots?
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