OCULUS/VR Talk
Tonight I dropped in on an AltSpace over 40 group meetup. There were shenanigans with some younguns at the beginning but they were shoo’d out. Then I ended up chatting most of the rest of the night with a history and sociology high school teacher from Ohio. She was the only teacher in her school who was allowed to teach virtually this year and it was hard won, at that. Most all other teachers were rejected, after being put through what she described as a lengthy interrogation where they tried to poke holes in their rationale for being allowed to work from home, and demand to offer doctor’s notes of previously recorded health conditions. Talk about infuriating. BUT, there is a good story here...
I asked her about what time in history, or historical event(s), were her passion. She said wars in general are of interest to her, but her passion is the Civil Rights Movement. That Black History and segregation history in most schools ends with the Black Panther movement...and then it is a blank spot after that, as if it’s all over. She feels it vitally important to tell the whole of American history, and black history is so often left out. I nodded of course, sad that this continues to be true.
She said this year, she got assigned to teach American History at her school for the first time. I said it must have been a heavy load to carry, teaching that particular topic in this particular year. She said it was, but since this year state testing wasn’t going to count toward their graduation, she didn’t have to teach to a test. No frantic trying to fill their heads with the answers to wrote questions. She felt completely unfettered to teach what SHE felt was important. So she focused a lot on civil rights, and for instance was able to teach about the Tulsa City Massacre, which isn’t in ther curriculum. She said she had a fair number of students of color in her class who came to her privately and said no one had ever told them about it before. Of course, if this is something “we don’t talk about”, even their parents may never have heard about it.
She felt without standardized testing, she was able to share a lot of stories in our history that were completely erased in generations past. So though it was a tough year, she felt she was able to do a lot of good. She also expressed worries about her kids (school and her teenage children of her own), and their social struggles during this time, on top of a couple generations who were already checking out of human interactions in favor of virtual ones. But she finds spaces like AltSpace encouraging, and hopes (looks forward to!) teaching classrooms in VR in the next 5 years or so. She dreams of being able to take kids into virtual “trenches”, showing them the realities of war, what it was like to walk in that world through VR.
If she lives that long.
She has been in kidney failure for the last 5 years. It’s the only reason she was allowed to teach from home, but also why she may or may not see the next evolution in virtual classrooms...
It was a really great talk, and since she is one of the hosts of the meetup, and we friended up, I look forward to finding her again in the future for more wonderful conversation.
Tonight I dropped in on an AltSpace over 40 group meetup. There were shenanigans with some younguns at the beginning but they were shoo’d out. Then I ended up chatting most of the rest of the night with a history and sociology high school teacher from Ohio. She was the only teacher in her school who was allowed to teach virtually this year and it was hard won, at that. Most all other teachers were rejected, after being put through what she described as a lengthy interrogation where they tried to poke holes in their rationale for being allowed to work from home, and demand to offer doctor’s notes of previously recorded health conditions. Talk about infuriating. BUT, there is a good story here...
I asked her about what time in history, or historical event(s), were her passion. She said wars in general are of interest to her, but her passion is the Civil Rights Movement. That Black History and segregation history in most schools ends with the Black Panther movement...and then it is a blank spot after that, as if it’s all over. She feels it vitally important to tell the whole of American history, and black history is so often left out. I nodded of course, sad that this continues to be true.
She said this year, she got assigned to teach American History at her school for the first time. I said it must have been a heavy load to carry, teaching that particular topic in this particular year. She said it was, but since this year state testing wasn’t going to count toward their graduation, she didn’t have to teach to a test. No frantic trying to fill their heads with the answers to wrote questions. She felt completely unfettered to teach what SHE felt was important. So she focused a lot on civil rights, and for instance was able to teach about the Tulsa City Massacre, which isn’t in ther curriculum. She said she had a fair number of students of color in her class who came to her privately and said no one had ever told them about it before. Of course, if this is something “we don’t talk about”, even their parents may never have heard about it.
She felt without standardized testing, she was able to share a lot of stories in our history that were completely erased in generations past. So though it was a tough year, she felt she was able to do a lot of good. She also expressed worries about her kids (school and her teenage children of her own), and their social struggles during this time, on top of a couple generations who were already checking out of human interactions in favor of virtual ones. But she finds spaces like AltSpace encouraging, and hopes (looks forward to!) teaching classrooms in VR in the next 5 years or so. She dreams of being able to take kids into virtual “trenches”, showing them the realities of war, what it was like to walk in that world through VR.
If she lives that long.
She has been in kidney failure for the last 5 years. It’s the only reason she was allowed to teach from home, but also why she may or may not see the next evolution in virtual classrooms...
It was a really great talk, and since she is one of the hosts of the meetup, and we friended up, I look forward to finding her again in the future for more wonderful conversation.
