It’s a back to school period like no other. After an end of school year dotted students as teachers resume Tuesday September 1 the way to school with a health protocol unpublished linked to the outbreak of coronavirus .
A recovery that can be stressful, all the more so for some of the teachers, those who are making their very first start to school. Young teachers, they have just obtained their assistance and are going to teach in conditions that no one can dream of for a first experience.
The young professors who confided in HuffPost concede: this return to school is particularly stressful. “I am between excitement and apprehension. As long as we don’t have the students in front of us, we don’t really know how it will work ”, underlines Camille, 26 years old. She has just obtained her competitive examination and will therefore teach as a trainee in the district of Blanc, in two schools, with two management discharges, CE1 / CE2 on the one hand and CE2 / CM1 / CM2 on the other.
How to link with a mask
A few days before the start of the school year, they still lacked information. “It’s very stressful, we learn from day to day what awaits us”, regrets Anaël, 22, who is tenured for the first time in a CE1 / CE2 class at Brinon-sur-Sauldre (Cher). A stress to which is added, for her, the arrival in a new class, a new place. Charlotte, a new mathematics teacher, was waiting for her, this Monday, the first day of school, to have information “fallen so late”.
All three have a particular concern: the difficulty of creating a bond with their students in unprecedented conditions, in particular when wearing a mask.
This is the case of Charlotte who, at 26, will teach mathematics for the first time in two sixth grade classes in the Val d’Oise, as an intern. “With the mask, I dread the contact. It might be silly, but I wonder if I’ll recognize my students, it’s important to know who they are, ”she explains. From the age of 11 in fact, the mask is compulsory , including in the playground.
Same story with Camille, for whom the mask could prevent “creating a link”. “The first contact is important, at first they don’t even know what we look like. With only half of the face, we see less expressions, even the look … It will certainly be more complicated to have a class posture ”, she emphasizes. “We will have to speak louder, especially in certain subjects”, adds Anaël.
Fill gaps
They also fear the organization, on a daily basis, of their courses and lessons. One of Camille’s sources of stress is the possible heterogeneity of the levels of her students after confinement. “Some have lost weeks of lessons. I prepared diagnostic evaluations in the form of small tests, games and workshops, to find out what their real achievements are ”, she explains.
“I do not even know if it will be possible to make them use certain computer tools within the framework of activities”, wonders for her part Charlotte. This is without counting the potential difficulties in enforcing barrier gestures and safety measures every day. “I know that it will be necessary to be uncompromising when it comes to wearing a mask, I have been told that a student cannot enter my class without a mask,” she says.
Everything except distance education
Difficult, under these conditions, to project themselves into this new page of their life. But one thing is certain, all three would much prefer to teach in this particular context rather than to teach at a distance. “What would worry me the most would be a reconfinement!”, Launches Anaël. “I prefer to be in class than at a distance, my parents are teachers and I have seen the difficulties they have been facing in recent months, it is complicated to deal with students who disappear from traffic”, explains Charlotte.
They are also not worried about their own health, in contact with possibly infected children but asymptomatic . “I’m not afraid of that, we’re going to wear masks, it’s going to be fine,” continues this professor who has already thought about how she would reassure them in the event of questions about the virus. “For me, I’m not worried,” says Camille for his part. “But for my students, a little more: if I fall ill, will replacements be available? If I’m afraid, it’s more for the continuity of the class ”.
