The Importance of Teachers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Exploring the experiences of college students with their teachers during the Coronavirus pandemic while looking into the responsibilities of professors during this pandemic, how their interactions may or may not affect students’ emotional wellbeing, and what can be done to support students during a challenging time as this one.

With the global outbreak of COVID-19, people all around the world have undergone drastic changes towards lifestyles revolving around staying indoors, dependent on technology. Universities and schools everywhere have taken the initiative to move classes to a remote setting – using platforms such as Zoom, Blackboard, and Microsoft Teams for administering online classes, events, and meetings. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, it does not resolve all the obstacles that students are facing during this pandemic.

Many students are struggling with complications, some obvious and some not so obvious to their teachers. Some of the visible hindrances could be a lack of a reliable internet connection to tune in to online classes or a lack of time to be present for classes or complete all the coursework assigned, primarily due to responsibilities in the household. These shifts have made socio-economic disparities among students more visible and apparent than ever before.

However, the more subtle challenge students have found themselves facing surrounds mental health. Many of those mental health difficulties that students were living with before the pandemic are now exacerbated by our current situation due to the rise of uncertainty, fear, and anxiety in the general population. They are manifested in the form of academic and social anxiety as well as other mental health conditions. All those conditions can intensify due to carrying the weight of academic work on top of the constant worry about the state of the world and their loved ones, or the inability to assert control over the current situation and to help others.

During the rise of these unchartered mental health complications, students are spending the majority of their time attending online classes, making the role of their teachers in alleviating pressures remarkably significant.

“Other than your family, teachers mold you into the person you are today,” notes Sana AlNoman, a medical student at the University of Sharjah (UOS), “I believe that whatever energy your teacher has, it reflects on you, the student.” AlNoman is currently in her second pre-clinical year at UOS, aspiring to give back to the world one day through her field of medicine.

Sarah Al Kaabi, a fourth-year economics major at New York University Abu Dhabi(NYUAD), shares AlNoman’s sentiment. Al Kaabi is a mental health advocate, a pianist, and a columnist at Sail Magazine. “How [teachers] choose to respond to this global pandemic has a very lasting, dramatic effect on us students,” Al Kaabi emphasizes.

AlNoman and Al Kaabi both share opinions that are representative of many other university students in the UAE, mine included. The role of a teacher has long been known to be difficult, honorable, and crucial. Ayham Adawi, a second-year biology student at NYUAD, highlights that teachers are inevitably mentors to many of their students, and in the eyes of those students, the way they handle their responsibilities matters a great deal.

The question arises then of precisely how teachers have been navigating their responsibilities during this pandemic. It is important to mention here that aside from university-wide policies that are implemented in response (such as the Pass/Fail policy announced recently within several colleges), the responses of professors have varied considerably. In other words, one professor’s reaction does not and should not be generalized to every other teacher.

Gustavo Aguilar, interdisciplinary artist and Assistant Professor of Collaborative Arts at NYU Tisch School of the Arts (and a current professor of mine), has shared several ways in which he has responded to the pandemic in the classroom setting, as he is teaching three different classes this semester.

The first thing Professor Aguilar did was recognize that we are no longer brought together by a physical space (i.e., the classroom), and so things will not be the same. Thus, especially for a collaborative arts class, alterations were necessary to fit our new setting(s). “I made changes because they were needed,” Aguilar notes, “all of you are going through different processes – adjusting to different spaces and going back to different homes.”

Professor Aguilar, in his observations of the situation, has hit the nail on the head. With this recognition of our different settings, he has also acknowledged the reality that now, more than ever, students’ inequalities, including physical and mental health conditions, will be apparent. He then recognized that it is his responsibility to accommodate all students present in the virtual classroom, where the “structure of the course is always fixed, but flexibility [in the syllabus, for example] is necessary and ensured.”

From the perspective of students, not all professors have been as accommodating. Fortunately, Al Kaabi’s experience was a good one. Al Kaabi is currently taking several music classes, as she is completing a music minor alongside her economics major. With the outbreak of the pandemic, many instruments were no longer available or within reach for Al Kaabi and her classmates. Nevertheless, she noted how her professor, instead of asking all the students to acquire their own equipment (which can be financially burdensome on many students), revamped the syllabus of this class, finding other creative ways to teach his students about the topic at hand without overwhelming them with new, complicated responsibilities.

“As for interactions, my professors were very supportive of us students.” Al Kaabi continues, “One of my teachers shared with us his struggles of getting out of bed sometimes, given the stressful situation we are all in, which reminded us that taking care of ourselves is the most important thing at the moment, and we can learn new things along the way.”

Adawi, too, feels that his professors have become more sympathetic to students, as some have even gone as far as scheduling 1-on-1 meetings with their students to check up on their mental and physical state. “Given that a lot of people are overwhelmed, some professors changed up the assignments we had, modified certain exams, and altered materials to suit the new format in a way that makes it all less daunting,” expresses Adawi.

The steps that were taken by professors, as well as their compassion and emotional support, has proven to be something that contributed to the wellbeing of both Al Kaabi and Adawi. Al Kaabi stresses that “some of us, students, with preexisting mental health conditions are struggling even more now, and those struggles might be invisible to some of our professors.” Nevertheless, those struggles are real; “[their] accommodation and compassion have helped me to really adjust to this whole situation, take it easy on myself, and look after my mental health,” she continues.

Other students are in different and more confusing situations. OA, a student at a university in Sharjah, shares his mixed experience. He has noted that while some professors have been more flexible, there hasn’t been much change in the treatment towards their students. “One of my classes has been giving me a lot of anxiety. The syllabus was not changed whatsoever to accommodate the drastic changes with our new concerns over the pandemic and our online classes, and I feel that it affected my mental health negatively,” adds OA.

OA also makes the very important point that both teachers and students are struggling during this time and that professors should be treating students, especially during times like these, like responsible adults. Micro-managing students’ behavior is not the ideal measure to take during a stressful period, and professors need to recognize that this is the moment to trust students, express compassion, and showcase empathy. “We are not looking for leniency in grading or the like. We want compassion. Just care about us. Recognize that we’re all struggling,” concludes OA.

There have been other situations where professors were almost incapable of altering anything about their syllabi and class structure due to the nature of the field of study. One significant example of this is the field of medicine. “We have our exit exam next year, which we have to pass in order to qualify from pre-clinical to clinical. We have a very different system, so professors cannot change or remove any content because of that,” AlNoman explains. Despite this, AlNoman commends her teachers for trying their best to make the transition to remote classes smoother. Not only have they put the effort in that regard, but they have also expressed compassion in reminding students to stay positive and to persevere.

When we, as students and teachers, undergo a time where things are not what we’ve ever imagined preparing for, it is important to firstly acknowledge the uncertainty of these times and then learn from the mistakes we all make along the way. Showcasing all kinds of experiences of students allows us, as an academic community, to grow and learn from them.

To take it a step further, I have compiled some advice from the students interviewed for this article – as well as from myself, based on those interviews, that may serve as a starting point for teachers and even teaching assistants:

• Check-in with your students, whether it is during the first ten minutes of class, via email, or, if you have the time and the capacity, via one-on-one meetings. Those check-ups can go a long way in boosting students’ morale in staying mentally healthy and active in the classroom.
• Consult your students on what alterations to the syllabus or the structure of the class should be made to eradicate any negative pressure on students, while still maintaining their participation and productivity in the classroom. This will make the students feel heard and included, and the final decision nevertheless remains in the hands of the teacher.
• Don’t be afraid of making those minor shifts in your syllabus, like making a final exam non-cumulative or removing participation grades to alleviate the stress from those with a bad internet connection. Trust in your students while making those changes, and treat them like adults and with no biases.
• Acknowledge the inequalities that are bound to be more prominent with students attending classes from the diverse settings of their homes. Recognize each students’ different abilities and the individuality of their experiences and psychological reactions during this pandemic.

One final reminder for all professors and students alike: even though there’s a less than a month left until the end of the academic year (and for many of us, it has ended already), it is never too late to make a positive change in the virtual classroom during summer courses where students’ concerns, struggles, and anxieties are heard and considered. Moreover, it is never too late to make the change towards taking better care of your mental health and emotional wellbeing – if you just remember to take it all one step at a time.