Carmeilina Fernandes-Kock
Distance Learning
Be it your TED talks or your film directors´ speeches, viewed on WhatsApp during lockdown, which
tomorrow ceases—your bodies brought up close, cradled in the intimacy of my phone. Your English,
ranging from foreign sounding to assertive, in near native tone, penetrating my study. Voices of
youth playing god. I delighted in each one of your three to six-minute orchestrations. How you
blindly jumped into the lap of my gaze, pure souls hoping to have attained the bar set by my
standards, many of you hoisting yourselves higher by the grace of method meeting substance, order,
that Cartesian water-tight solidity of demonstration becoming a thing of sheer beauty—my breath
walking the tightrope of each line of thought. The absence of classroom gave you wings to strut your
stuff to no other than myself. A privilege. Yet throughout
I found myself the student, abruptly made alert, learning to read the signs, breaking the mould,
diving into vulnerability; disarming gestures that emulated your ideas of a pro. Unaware, you let me
step into your worlds, poster corners edging your frame, your backgrounds ranging from antique
wardrobes to Ikea shelves set up by your parents on which dolls still rested or trophies stood, those
won at an even earlier age. Behind one of you I could detect a washing stand, its hanging row of pegs.
My heart sank as I listened to you speak of Jackie O. and Eleanor Roosevelt in control of their image,
only to discover you shared a bed with your ailing mother. Courageous youth unfailingly forwarding
assignments prone to betray the secrets of home, weighing down on me now, as I comprehend the
fragility of the enterprise whereby distance teaching becomes the prying eye. Confinement takes us
places we keep to ourselves yet the treasures of your minds, wrapped up in lives unfolding, your
windows casually thrust open, the blind trust you’ve shown, these are memories to behold.
Tomorrow, bearing masks, we’ll face each other once again, on that levelling ground called
The classroom. We’ll resume rethinking the world, in that little bit of paradise.
Our eyes will meet first discreetly then feed on each other’s gaze while together we zoom in on the
very heart of matters.
—Submitted on
Carmeilina Fernandes-Kock am Brink is of German-Indian background, grew up in Canada, and teaches English in Toulouse, France.
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