Yesterday a friend posted on Facebook that living in quarantine conditions “turns people into a**holes”.
My response was that this was true, but only for those already so inclined.
Thinking more about it since then, I have come to the conclusion that this extended quarantine/lockdown is proving to be an intensifier. It brings out the true colours that underlie each person’s character and makes them more evident.
Those who are inclined to be selfish have been increasingly inconsiderate of others. Those who sulk at not getting their own way have done exactly that, usually all over social media. Those who tend to be angry have been. Those who tend to resist being told what to do have defied the rules and done as they pleased.
On the other hand, we have also seen plenty of evidence that recent adversity has brought out the best of humanity, too.
Those who tend to be generous have definitely been so. Those who advocate for the underprivileged have done so relentlessly. Those who are kind and thoughtful have shown more kindness and thoughtfulness, often to the very great surprise and gratitude of others. The levels of commitment, giving, service and going the extra mile have been inspiring.
What we are seeing is more of each person’s true colours.
It’s also becoming evident that we will see even more of the same while social restrictions and slowed economies continue.
It is important to understand this because we should not be making excuses for anyone’s bad behaviour. We should not be dismissing things we would not normally accept or shrug off. And we certainly shouldn’t respond to appalling behaviour by explaining it away with lines like “they are under pressure”.
All that does is enable people to continue being nasty, with little fear of consequences for their words and actions.
We are all under pressure. Many of us are struggling one way or another. We are all missing people, places and things we love. We’re just not all being horrible about it.
Quarantine: Bringing Out the Best And Worst In People #QuarantineLife #LOCKDOWN2020 #COVIDー19 #Personality #behavior #blogpost
The Australian federal and state governments are, like those all over the world, currently considering how to phase the country out of strict social isolation and start getting back to business. All we know for sure at this point is that it will happen in stages, with the strictest rules being relaxed first. Each state will decide when to implement each stage.
As states roll back some of the social restrictions we’ve been living under, there are a few key things we must all remember.
Easing restrictions doesn’t mean the virus is gone. It means that the levels of infection in the community are low enough that the hospitals will have capacity for anyone sick enough to need a bed and a ventilator.
We will still have to socially distance for the foreseeable future. That’s probably not an entirely bad thing.
Hygiene will still matter. In fact, hygiene has always mattered. I have often marvelled that is 2020, despite how sophisticated and advanced we may think we are, it has been necessary to tell people to wash their hands and not to cough or spit on people.
People matter more than convenience or entertainment. Some of us might be itching to get out to the football, the pub, or the cinema. Others just want to not get sick. Restrictions are being lifted in stages to balance so that the interests and priorities of both groups, so it’s important to still follow any rules that remain in place.
Some people have thrived while working or learning from home. The opposite is also true. All those extroverts who are dead keen to get back to “normal” need to realise that any anxiety they have felt while having to stay home was actually a very real case of the shoe being on the other foot. Introverts and people who suffer from social or workplace anxiety had had something of a reprieve over the past few months and might be dreading work or school going back to the way it used to be.
Patience and consideration of others are crucial life skills for everyone. Even when the need for isolation has completely passed, we all need to be understanding of how others feel.
What Rolling Back #isolation #restrictions Means. #StayHomeStaySafe #BeKind #SocialDistancing
I’ve ventured beyond the local supermarket, pharmacy and supermarkets once since isolation started. Last week, though, the time came when things had to be done, so I planned where I had to go, loaded up with sanitiser and prepared to social distance my way through town.
And, sure enough, that person I would be happy to never see again walked past me in two different places that I had to visit.
Song credit: ‘Close To You’ by The Carpenters
I saw them, but pretended I didn’t. All those years of experience as an actor paid off yet again. They looked at me, and I looked right through them like they weren’t there.
The first time I thought it was a fluke. The second time, I wondered.
My skin crawling and my stomach roiling, all the while reassuring myself that it was just coincidence and doubting that at the same time, I completed the rest of my essential errands looking over my shoulder, and then got out of dodge as soon as I could.
I would like to think it won’t always be that way, but I guess there are some things you can’t sanitise. Trauma will do that.
Staying out of town definitely has an upside.
I am safe at home, in more ways than one. I don’t have to watch my back, and I don’t have to worry about who is going to walk around the corner or show up in the supermarket aisle.
I know that I won’t have that luxury forever but, while I can, I’m staying home.
The Upside of Isolation #isolation #IsolationLife #IsolationStories #StayingSafe #StayHome #SaferAtHome
In my endeavours to work and teach from home, I am supported by a highly competent and very specialised team. It’s fair to say my home office environment would not be the same without them.
Human Resources Manager: Scout
Scout’s vision is to head an organisation that exists to serve. Not one for sitting on the fence, she is unashamed about demanding efficiency and expecting 100% compliance. She is an expert manager of her Human Resources and is proficient at making them do exactly what she wants them to. Current levels of isolation and social restriction have made little difference to her management style, and she continues to dispatch any unwanted guests of the smaller variety with impressive alacrity.
Scout started here as a junior in July, 2006, and has leapt from height to height since then. She proudly acknowledges that she is, in fact, the cat’s whiskers around here.
Office Manager and Head of Security: Abbey
Abbey has a range of responsibilities, but dislikes being described as a ‘general dog’s body’. She oversees security, makes regular inspections of the yard and monitors all entrances and exits with careful attention, Abbey takes motivating all team members almost as seriously as ensuring that every meal and snack is thoroughly Lab tested. Abbey consistently demonstrates a level of loyalty and commitment that goes above and beyond the call of duty. She is also a most excellent listener, and regularly provides great counselling and support.
Abbey started here as a junior in November, 2007, stepping eagerly into the role sadly left vacant by her predecessor, Chiara. At this point in time, she has no plans to retire, and we embrace her presence here for as long as she is willing and able to stay.
These wonderful team members have a very strong rapport and consistently demonstrate genuine mutual admiration and respect. They work really well together, each bringing their unique talents and abilities to the job and complementing one another perfectly.
As a teacher, I know there is no substitute for being in the classroom, engaging with the students and supervising their work, making suggestions or guiding their thinking. When you create a constructive, productive learning environment, students thrive.
Over the past few weeks, my school has worked really hard to reproduce that in an online learning environment. My colleagues and I have put a great deal of thought and preparation into making our students’ experiences of learning from home in online classes as interesting and beneficial as they can possibly be. From where I stand, we’ve done a great job of preparing for teaching and learning from home, and I really hope that our students and their parents feel the same way.
Today was our first day of teaching and learning remotely. My students were well behaved and cooperative. Most seem to have coped with the challenges of doing school at home, some of them sharing an environment with their siblings who were also doing their lessons at home, quite well. We got through everything I had planned for those initial lessons. Judging from the work they handed in today, the kids generally worked as well as they usually do in a classroom environment.
I don’t know how they all felt at the end of the school day, but by the time 3.30pm rolled around, I was exhausted.
Make no mistake: online teaching is really hard. It’s mentally demanding in ways that physical presence in the classroom is not. It’s harder to hear students when they speak, and it’s harder to be sure that everyone understands what you say or what you want them to do. Even marking the roll poses new challenges when you can’t simply identify empty spaces in the classroom. Things that have become instinctive for teachers are now impossible, and we find ourselves reinventing pedagogy, teaching, communication, and the delivery of lessons and lesson materials.
You can no longer maintain classroom management by circulating around the room or standing in strategic places so you can see what kids have on their screens. You can’t just look over a kid’s shoulder and remind them of a principle or fact that they need to consider. You can’t make a teaching point of quickly correcting an error or oversight.
To an extent, one has to just accept that and move on. If a student is easily distracted or willing to be inattentive, that is understandable: there’s a lot going on, they’re at school without being at school, they’re in their own environment, and some of them are genuinely anxious about the dangers and the restrictions that Covid-19 has brought about. Really, the best you can hope for is to find a way to gently bring their attention back to the task and try to re-focus them.
It’s a tricky set of circumstances for the kids as it is, and adding learning at home to the strangeness of social isolation and distancing is a situation that some kids — and some teachers — will undoubtedly find awkward at best.
Still, it’s good for all of us, kids and teachers alike, to have a routine and a variety other things to think about. It is healthy and constructive use of the abundant time we would otherwise have on our hands at this point in time.
As tired as I was, they day did end particularly well. After spending 90 minutes with one of my classes this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised when three of my students thanked me for the lesson. In the past, wishing each other a good afternoon or a pleasant evening was not unusual, but having students actually thanking me for double English after lunch on Tuesday is totally new.
I spent the rest of my regular school day responding to the work they submitted, and giving my students some feedback on their ideas and responses. It was nice to be able to
At 4.15pm, I made myself a cup of coffee and almost cried into it with gratitude for my good but mentally exhausting day, and for the caffeine upon which I would rely for the next couple of hours while I cooked dinner and did everything else I needed to do.
When dinner was done, I looked at my husband and asked if it was too early to go to bed. “It’s 6.15pm,” he said. “So probably, then?” I asked. “Yeah. Probably.”
Maybe I’ll just spend the time between now and bedtime thinking about what gift I’m going to buy myself for Teacher Appreciation Week. Whatever it is, I will have earned it.
One teacher’s thoughts on the first day of teaching and learning while #StayingHome #teachingfromhome #TeachFromHome #TeachingOnline #teachertwitter
Here’s a Public Service Announcement for everyone thinking of breaking out of isolation and going somewhere else for the Easter weekend, especially those Australians who seem to think that the rules apply to everyone but them.
Just. Stay. Home.
And the places you’re thinking of going? They don’t want you there at this point in time.
Sure, spending the long weekend at home with the same people might be boring, but aren’t they the people you’re thinking of going away with for the weekend? Maybe it’s home itself that is boring. Consider, though, that it’s also safe, because it’s keeping you out of the way of that nasty corona virus and any other germs that might be doing the rounds.
Yes, it’s inconvenient. But it’s no more inconvenient or uncomfortable for you than it is for anyone else.
People selfishly ignoring the rules, going out and potentially spreading germs all over the place is why we have such strict isolation rules now.
And, you know, it’s an investment in everyone’s future.
Some of us have elderly family members that we’re trying to keep alive long enough to be able to see and hug their children and grandkids at Christmas, if this is all over by then. Some of us have family members whose immunity is compromised by illness, or chemotherapy, or their own unique biology. We’d like to keep them alive, too. Some of us have chronic illnesses that make us susceptible to every bug that floats past our noses. Given that we already battle significant health issues every day of our lives, we’d prefer to not add Covid-19 to that list.
So when selfish, ignorant people insist on travelling places where they don’t live — whether it’s to deplete our shops of the essentials that are in short supply everywhere (thanks for that by the way, we didn’t need toilet paper this past fortnight) or hang out on the beaches or lake shores or in the parks — and so disrespect the boundaries that the government has established to keep everyone healthy and safe, we get more than a little annoyed.
Because the rest of us are staying home, too. And we would like to be able to eventually see and hug our families and friends. We’d like to be able to go to a cafe or restaurant, or meet with friends at the pub. We’d like to be able to browse a real bookstore with real books in it, or go shopping for things like clothes or shoes without worrying about whose health we might be endangering.
And let’s face it – most people who have lost their jobs because of this pandemic would like them back, sooner rather than later. Essential workers would like to be able to go to work and come home not worrying about what they’re exposed to every day.
The more selfish prats who insist on going to the beach or driving some tourist route instead of just staying home, the longer and harder the lockdown is going to be.
So please, for the love of everything good in this world, stay home.
If home is “boring”, that says a lot more about your imagination than you realise. If you decide something will be boring, guess what? It will be.
Making changes or finding and introducing new opportunities for entertaining yourselves at home is entirely within your control. So if you’re bored, you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself.
Consider this long weekend your opportunity to change your attitude and your environment, not your location.
Please: #StayHome this #EasterWeekend #EasterWeekendlockdownchallenge #StayHomeAustralia #StayingHomeStaySafe
My family are definitely looking out for me while we’re all staying home. Just this week, two of my nieces sent me messages about opportunities for free entertainment while we’re all staying home and staying safe. I’m super grateful to them both for thinking of me and passing on the details of things they knew I would love.
In factt, those opportunities are so good, they deserve sharing with you, too.
The Globe Theatre is streaming a free Shakespeare play each fortnight, starting with Hamlet on April 6th. What a fabulous opportunity to watch great productions by some of the best in the world! And for any Shakespeare lovers who, like me, live somewhere that means they’ll never get to see as many of the plays as they wish to in live theatre, this is a fabulous chance to see more of the canon in near-to-live performance.
The Shows Must Go On! features productions of various Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, free of charge, on YouTube. The first show available is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor TM Dreamcoat. Given that I directed that show last year, anyone who knows me will tell you there is absolutely zero chance of me not singing along with every word.
(Edit: already watching… already singing. Strange as it seems… )
I know it’s not the same as actually going to the theatre, but such fabulous, free entertainment is most welcome, especially while we’re all maintaining social isolation and trying to maintain our wellbeing.
Fabulous, free entertainment opportunities for #StayingHome #StayHome #entertainment #WhatToDoDuringQuarantine #WhatToWatch
It’s cheerful, and simple, and sincere, and it’s just so beautiful.
In the midst of these bleak and socially-distanced times, these messages are a delightful trend that is bringing heartfelt encouragement to communities.
In this time of social distancing and staying home, some people are feeling very restricted and isolated. It’s easy for people to give into negativity and resentment, particularly if they are used to being out and about and interacting with people. It’s crucial that we don’t fall into that trap, especially as it is, in all likelihood, only early days yet.
I have one single thought to share with you today which has the power to completely change a person’s perspective and re-focus their thoughts in much healthier directions.
Don’t think about what you can’t do. Think about what you cando.
This is going to be my response to every expression of negativity about staying home.
WordyNerdBird 