I am again writing on a holiday. It is a bit disappointing that we continue to work on holidays, and yet, it seems so natural. My attempts at keeping work and personal life separate have gone for a toss. A few years ago I made a strong decision to not make work calls to people on holidays. All of this has gone for a toss due to personal engagements. In any case, work from home had become a regular feature during the pandemic. The boundaries of home and work are now completely blurred.
What I find worst about working at home is the aspect of coordinating with colleagues over calls. They are all very cooperative, but, just the process of having to speak to someone on a holiday makes me cringe on the insides. I want them to be free and I want to be free myself. I don’t think anyone of us imagined that teachers would have this kind of work from home. Nothing creative, nothing involving students directly. Managing administration and inspections in college.
The competition that most of us were running away from has come back to us. I don’t know if it is perceived inefficiency in the education system, or that corporates have suddenly discovered that education is a lucrative business, or a powerful tool to bring about social change in the direction that they find suitable. Whichever may be true, it has made our work increasingly corporatised and limiting. There is little time that I get to improve my teaching, to read more, to find new ways of bringing the best to the class. More time is spent in only filling forms and ensuring that paper work is in order.