The impact of lockdown on my teaching and creativity by David Arrowsmith

​David Arrowsmith is a history teacher and writer who lives in Auckland. He is married to Hilary, a librarian, and they have three daughters: Charlotte in Manchester, Penny in Wellington, and Kim in Tamaki Makaurau. David has published one novel, Wesley Jones, a coming-of-age story set in rural South Auckland in the sixties. He is currently working on a memoir based on his father’s Kodachrome slides of life in a farming community in the 1960s.
 
In late February 2020, I accepted a full-time teaching offer at a South Auckland secondary school. I was already two years into semi-retirement when at the age of 67 a new teaching experience began. Little did I know then that my decision to return to teaching would be impacted by Covid-19.   I was in the process of getting to know staff and students and learning the system at my new school when, within a month and with minimal preparation, we were thrown into lockdown.
 
Suddenly I had to learn how to navigate ‘Google Meets’ with my classes — taking the roll and chasing up the other half of the class who'd become disengaged from learning. I was required to makes notes on every online communication on a spreadsheet, be they phone calls, emails, or text messages, with every student in each of my six classes. The Ministry of Education wanted the data to analyse the Covid-19 education experience. Tracking students and data entry began to supersede teaching.
 
On weekly online sessions on ‘Google Classroom’ I quickly learned how to scroll down documents and YouTube clips about Julius Caesar or Adolf Hitler to motivate the kids from a distance. I learnt to close my laptop 5pm Friday and not open it until 8am Monday knowing there would be umpteen emails from students with drafts of assessments to check, or asking for assistance. There’d be a Google Meet code for the principal's briefing with eighty staff at 8.30am. I'd ring disengaged students at two in the afternoon only to be told by their parent they were asleep. I'd email students who weren't producing any work on Google Classroom and learn that after a month of lockdown they were still waiting for the promised laptop from the Ministry. I'd discover students working full-time to help put food on the table for their family.
 
I tried to create a work/life balance at home. This meant daily bike rides or walks, meditation, reading great authors like Hilary Mantel or rereading classics like The Wind in the Willows. Keeping in touch with my daughters by social media became crucial. The 1pm 'Jacinda and Ashley Show' on TV One became a daily ritual with Hilary to learn the latest development in the virus crisis. I learnt to play the Gold Card game at the supermarket to avoid the queues until Countdown banned it and I had to shop at New World who still allowed the privilege. It meant the ongoing quest for engaging TV drama on Netflix and discovering great productions like The Crown.
 
One of the frustrating aspects of the new teaching load in the time of Covid-19 was its impact on a new writing project I’d started in January. With Deborah Shepard as mentor, I had started work on a memoir of my father based around his wonderful Kodachrome slides of 1960s rural South Auckland that he'd taken as a newly arrived English immigrant. As the themes from the photos emerged, and the writing became more focused, and the family research proved surprising and enthralling, the pressure from my teaching job increased. Students' NCEA assessments were pouring in. Marking was time-consuming. I was also required to write very detailed reports on students' progress for parents. By the end of a school term that effectively lasted from February to July, I was exhausted and in need of a break in Taupo. With Deborah's support, the memoir is still on track as we experience a second unexpected and unwanted lockdown for Auckland in August. Whoever would have thought my year would unfold in this way.

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