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Class Inequalities, Government Response, Citizen Initiatives

Nishtha
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In response to

Covid-19 and class inequalities :

As India Battles Covid, Class Divide is Growing https://www.deccanchronicle.com/opinion/columnists/070520/sanjay-kumar-as-india-battles-covid-class-divide-is-growing.html

 A Pandemic in an Unequal India https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-pandemic-in-an-unequal-india/article31221919.ece

 India cannot Fight Coronavirus without Taking into Account its Class and Caste Divisions https://scroll.in/article/956980/india-cannot-fight-coronavirus-without-taking-into-account-its-class-and-caste-divisions

The Lockdown Revealed the Extent of Poverty and Misery Faced by Migrant Workers https://thewire.in/labour/covid-19-poverty-migrant-workers

India's Response to COVID-19 Is a Humanitarian Disaster http://bostonreview.net/global-justice/debraj-ray-s-subramanian-indias-r...

Documentation of Disaster Relief Work :

PM-CARES Fund 'Not a Public Authority', Doesn't Fall Under RTI Act: PMO https://thewire.in/government/pm-cares-fund-not-a-public-authority-rti-act-pmo

 Community volunteers:  

https://www.facebook.com/thejucommune/

Foreign Schools

tschuetz
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In response to

This news article focuses on the 140 "foreign schools" that the German state runs in different countries. However, only 30% of the schools' funding comes from the German government, while the rest is raised through fees paid by parents. The article reports that due to school closures, funding has dwindled rapidly and according to self-evaluations, 64% of schools face bankruptcy unless the German state offers emergency support. The article reports that back in November, the German government decided to foster the schools as a means of cultural and educational foreign politics.  A web conference to discuss the issue is planned for next week.

Our project could keep tabs on how foreign schools as spaces of transnationalism become reshaped during COVID-19.

asking the right questions

ntanio
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In response to

I filled out a TA multiple choice questionaire recently about teaching during pandemic. Did I feel supported in access to remote teaching tools? Did I need workshops on how to run an online discussion, test prep,? etc.

What was unasked and therefore unstated is the trauma students are facing amid an administrative effort to carry on, do our best, and talks about our "Fill-in-the-Mascot" Family. In my class we hear stories of students forced to leave campus and return to unsafe family home environments. Many students lost their on-campus jobs, yet are still stuck in rental contracts, with full tuition fees, and reduced campus services. Many students discovered they were on-call "essential" workers which has played havoc with their health concerns and class engagement. We also have students with COVID19 trying to stay on top of their course workload because they are supposed to graduate this Spring. 

Meanwhile as I talk to students I hear that most of their classes are recorded lectures taught asynchronously. They tell us that they often binge listen to these at 1.5x speed just to get through them. --This is the mode of online learning that Robert Post in his NCA post describes as "effective and efficient" for the "tramission of information." I wonder who isn't he talking about.

In trying to teaching using zoom during the pandemic, Sharon Traweek and I have held synchronous online class discussions. Many students have told us this is their only synchronous class this quarter. We have tried to teach students to think critically in/of zoom as a built environment. To ask what  assumptions, hierarchies, epistemologies are built into our online classrooms. We have struggled to find ways to disrupt those pathways with alternative strategies.

In answer to the question what is being foregrounded and obscured? I think in all the reflection about the future of residential and online learning and about the multiple crisis Universities, as well as the rest of us, are facing; what gets obscured is how important and how difficult it is to teach to students that they must think critically with and about the tools they are given and expected to learn.