‘Maslow before Bloom’: Implementing a caring pedagogy during Covid-19

The speed at which the novel coronavirus, known as Covid-19, spread around the world in early 2020, has been well-documented. Countries closed their borders, cities and regions went into lockdown, schools and businesses closed and hospital geared up for an influx of patients (Cameron, 2020; OECD, 2021; UNESCO, 2020). On March 25, New Zealand went into Level 4 lockdown, the most restrictive of the government’s alert level system. The school holidays, due to start on April 9, were brought forward two weeks to give the Ministry of Education and schools a chance to prepare for school-led home learning. A survey of schools highlighted that only half the schools in the country felt they could deliver learning fully online, with lack of devices and limited Internet connectivity being the major problems (New Zealand Government, 2020). Most schools moved into home learning on April 15 and continued until after May 18, when the country moved down to Level 2. On return, schools needed to alter their approaches to comply with social distancing and hygiene requirements until the country returned to Level 1 in June. In August 2020, Auckland schools closed again and yet again several times in 2021 (Author, 2020; Cameron, 2020; Education Review Office [ERO], 2021; Henrickson, 2020; Ministry of Education, 2020). The arrival of the Delta variant in Auckland communities, in late August 2021, led to further regional lockdowns, some of which are still in place at the time of writing. This article draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with 20 teachers in either late 2020 or mid-2021, as part of a larger study of New Zealand schools’ responses to Covid-19. The article begins with a short synthesis of research literature on teachers’ responses to lockdowns overseas and in New Zealand. The methodology for our study is briefly outlined before describing the ‘caring pedagogy’ theoretical framework that underpins the approach to this article. The findings are presented in a semi-chronological order, from teachers’ preparation, to implementation, to returning to school. The findings are interspersed with ‘found poems’ created from verbatim transcripts to highlight teachers’ voices. The discussion section revisits the concepts in the article’s title, that is, ‘Maslow before Bloom.’ The overall purpose of our article is to portray the tension between teachers’ willingness to adopt a caring pedagogy and the toll that it took on them, personally and professionally.

School bonding, attachment, and engagement through remote learning: Fostering school connectedness

Over 2020 and 2021 we have seen significant disruption to schooling across the world as COVID-19 forces school closures. Education sectors migrated to distance learning arrangements and teachers and students primarily communicated through digital means. Under challenging conditions, school leaders and teachers made rapid changes to pedagogy and curriculum to accommodate their students’ diverse range of learning needs. We present an interview drawn from a qualitative study undertaken in Australia to illustrate (from a teacher’s perspective) how a school response to COVID-19 integrates elements of school connectedness during the shift to distance learning. School connectedness is an umbrella term that has been theorised in many different ways. In this article, we illustrate school bonding, attachment, and engagement as three interrelated aspects of school connectedness that came to the fore during lockdown measures associated with COVID-19. Leaders, teachers, students, and school communities benefit from school connectedness. When adversity is experienced, school connectedness can be seen in the relationships between teachers, the commitment to students, and the all-important pastoral support from school leaders. Strong and supportive relationships develop through practices that support school bonding, school attachment, and school engagement.

How can digitally mediated teaching listen and care?

Laura D'Olimpio reflects on her teaching experiences during the pandemic in a university environment in the UK, emphasising the importance of care for students in this challenging situation.

Editorial: Ethics and Teacher Vaccinations during COVID-19

In this editorial, we discuss some of the ethical implications of the pandemic on teachers' work and their relationship to students, whānau, community and colleagues in relation to the complexity of mandatory vaccinations for educators.

Australian music teacher’ reflections and concerns during the pandemic: Resetting the use of technologies in 21st century classroom practice

Classroom practice around the globe has changed considerably due to the global pandemic. Although ICT (information and communication technology) is at the heart of 21st century teaching and learning, many teachers and students had to make significant adjustments shifting from face-to-face to remote (online) delivery in response to lockdowns and government restrictions since March 2020. This paper focuses on one focal question: ‘What were some of the concerns using ICT during Covid-19 pandemic?’ which was part of a wider Australian study ‘Re-imaging the future: music teaching and learning, and ICT in blended environments in Australia’. The authors seek to understand how music teachers look to employ technology in ways that connect teaching frameworks to 21st century classroom practice. As part of the ongoing study, they present preliminary survey data gathered between March–June 2021 from a range of music teachers around the country. Using thematic analysis, they discuss advantages, disadvantages, opportunities, and challenges in relation to responses that thematically relate three key elements: pedagogy, social interaction, and technology. They identify concerns and call on music educators to reset what, how, and why they teach when using technology to develop 21st century competencies, as the future of schooling continues to change its landscape due to the pandemic.

Reflection on supporting offshore international students during the pandemic

Teaching is usually considered a caring profession, yet care in higher education settings is rarely studied. In this reflective piece, I draw on my experiences supporting offshore international students during the pandemic to highlight that maternal, calculated and neoliberal care are not the only enactments of care possible in higher education setting. I propose that communal forms of caring teaching based on recognition and dialogic relationship with students offer tertiary educators the opportunity to put the heart back to the neoliberal university.

An agentic perspective in assessment and evaluation of play-based learning

In recent times play-based learning has become more prevalent in New Zealand primary schools. The notion of learner agency has also emerged as a priority for educators. Learner agency is underpinned by a strong foundation of theory that has the potential to find synergies with play-based learning. Based on research across three primary school classrooms, this paper conceptualises learner agency as occurring on three separate levels in the classroom—type of learning, direction of learning, and evaluation of learning. It is the evaluation of learning where play-based educators may benefit the most from an agentic perspective. It is suggested that primary classroom teachers seeking to evaluate play-based learning should adopt a dialogic approach to evaluation based on asking questions that are focused on the four key properties of agency, which are: ideas, planning, action, and self-reflection.

A study of work stress and coping among primary school teachers in the Wellington region

This research examines the perception of work stress among primary school teachers in the Wellington region. Specifically, it focuses on the way teachers perceive work stress, the contributing factors and the coping strategies employed. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is the qualitative approach and methodology chosen to examine the way teachers make sense of their stress experiences. The educational sector in New Zealand has undergone enormous legislative and organisational change and in the recent past there have been nationwide primary school teacher strikes. While research on teacher stress in New Zealand in relation to the 1989 major reforms has been published, there has been little recent qualitative research on work stress in primary school teachers. This study shows that these teachers experience moderate to high levels of stress because of work overload, the multiplicity of sources of stress, the emotional demands of the role and the frustration and constraints they face in role performance. Even so, these teachers derive satisfaction from the core job of teaching and utilise positive coping strategies to manage their stress and work demands, with most of them intending to stay in the role. However, the sustainability of the role of teaching is a concern, as societal misperceptions about teaching and lack of respect for them pose challenges for those continuing in the profession long term. This study contributes to the base literature on teacher stress in the New Zealand context and offers recommendations for supporting the well-being of primary school teachers.

The importance of people and place

This ecofeminist-inspired research study, influenced by an ethic of care, engaged the participants in photo-elicitation and interviews. Ecofeminism originated as a theory and movement related to women and the environment (Estévez-Saá & Lorenzo-Modia, 2018), while an ethic of care stems from relational ethics that assumes human connectedness in context (Clement, 1996; Noddings, 2013). Thematic and visual narrative analysis of collected data supported the establishment of findings. The study aimed to contribute to the idea that a place-based approach can be taken to developing a holistic, meaningful and balanced local curriculum – one that privileges a ‘sense of place’ and the relationship between humans and their environments as co-habitors.

Editorial: PBRF Changes

Over the last 18 years successive governments have tried various schemes to reward and encourage good research, without actually conducting much research into the effectiveness of the rewards and discouragements inherent in their schemes. Universities have been very quick to analyse where the weaknesses in the successive formats gave them opportunities to promote their stronger players, and hide their weaker ones, to the point where the focus of universities seems to have become playing the rules, rather than actually supporting good research.