Saved by COVID: Changes in working conditions of compulsory schools in time of pandemic

Abstract

The World Health Organization announced the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic in early March 2020. COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. The first cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Iceland in late February and the Government announced various measures to control the spread of the virus by enacting a ban on larger gatherings and introducing rules on social distancing which resulted in disruption of school activities when teachers were forced to change their teaching practices. Although Icelandic compulsory school students were able to attend school part-time the everyday school life was disrupted. Inclusive education is the official education policy in Iceland and every student should have equal study opportunities and access to appropriate educational activities (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneyti [Ministry of Education, Science and Culture], 2011). This article reports on a qualitative research project carried out among fourteen middle school teachers and explores their experiences of teaching in inclusive education settings, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews were taken during the period of June – September 2020. In this article we adopt Michel Foucault’s (1975) ideas on governmentality to explain how teachers and everyday school life are monitored and controlled. Governmentality refers to the study of power where the subject is a willing participant in being governed and takes part in self-governing of their conduct. Foucault (1975) uses Bentham’s idea of the panopticon as a model for external surveillance; the subjects do not know if anyone is in the panopticon and therefore are unaware as to whether they are being monitored. Foucault further developed the idea of the panopticon and introduced the term panopticism to describe internal surveillance when the gaze of the watchman is internalized by the subject who takes on self-monitoring. The research findings suggest that the participants had both positive and negative experiences of teaching middle-school children during the COVID-19 pandemic. All teachers claimed they experienced more freedom and more trust. Before the pandemic most had experienced negative attitudes from the media and the public, consistently shaming teachers and blaming for failing PISA results and claiming they have too much holiday and lack basic training. Also, the teachers had experienced lack of understanding and support from school administrators when facing difficulties teaching in inclusive settings. They claimed that their classes were too big, they lacked day-to-day support from special educators, time for preparation was inadequate, as was overall support in dealing with difficult teacher-parent relationships. Many teachers faced additional pressure from external experts and pet-projects taken on by school administrators, often with the purpose of dealing with failing results from PISA or other standardized tests. There was a discursive shift during the pandemic. Instead of shaming teachers, they became “essential workers” and were placed at the frontline alongside healthcare professionals. Suddenly they were trusted to plan and carry out their teaching without systematic monitoring. All the teachers claimed that working with their students in smaller groups made it possible to provide individualized support and that COVID-19 had proven the importance of small numbered classes in inclusive settings. However, the teachers also described how COVID-19 with online and distance learning had exposed the different home situations of Icelandic students, a topic which has been taboo in Icelandic society. There have been claims that the digital gap in Iceland is almost non-existent. The findings, however, suggest that access to digital technology has been overestimated by the Icelandic school system. The teachers, from all over Iceland, described homes that did not have access to the internet, did not own computers or tablets and did not have basic computer skills to be able to support younger students. Also, the schools were not all ready for online teaching. Some of the teachers described how the internet connection was poor in their schools, stating that there were not enough computers for teachers and students and lack of computer skills among teachers. The teachers also told stories about families who were shielding against the disease and their children never came to schools, but some students never came to class during the assembly ban. Reasons were related to health and language barriers, but also to social difficulties and neglect. Finally, the teachers declared that in some sense they were relieved to get a break from meetings with parents and external specialists which raises the question how these students with special education needs experienced these changes during the pandemic; this needs additional exploration with further research. The panopticon or the external monitoring of the school system produces a discourse of responsibility, where teachers are responsible for the measured failings of the school system and individual students. The panopticon appears to have broken down during the pandemic which allowed teachers more freedom and caused a discursive shift away from responsibility towards trust. Further research is required soon to determine whether this discursive shift will be sustained after the pandemic.