It’s 9 a.m. on a Monday and you are a college professor starting an online class. Your students, physically separated from you and from each other, since Corona Virus closed your campus, sleepily appear in little boxes on your screen. In one box, to the left, a student stands at an angle. Is that a checkout counter you see? You take a closer look, spot a familiar logo and realize that he is shopping at Costco.
How should you react?
a) Furiously take him down in front of the class?
b) Compliment him for multitasking? c) Ask him to get you some toilet paper?
This is not a hypothetical. It happened to my colleague, Dr. M, who fortunately, for all concerned, teaches psychology.
The good doctor decided to overlook the shopper and started class. That’s because Dr. M considered whether this teen was the designated shopper for his family.
Was he shopping for the elderly?
Was the Wi-Fi at Costco better than the Wi-Fi at home?
What would I have done? I teach English as a second language and it has taken me hours to reformat lectures. I would be furious if a student signed into my class from a shopping cart. At the very least, the kid could block his the video. Oh wait—maybe he didn’t know how. Inspired by Dr. M, I reframed. In my own virtual class, three young Chinese men lucky enough to get flights home, were signing in live to my 9 a.m. class. They appeared at midnight, their time, from hotel rooms in Beijing. Now in the world before COVID-19, how would you judge students showing up at midnight from anywhere—let alone a hotel? Sadly, that’s where my students are quarantined for two weeks before being allowed to return to their families.
Picture this! A college professor forced to shift her teaching style within days, now has to shift social expectations—not just framing the student visages on her screen—but also reframing them.
