Locked in and locked out: Covid-19 and teaching “remotely”

Covid-19 has rendered education “remote”, opening a chasm in space and time between teachers and students, between how teaching and learning was practiced before and how it is practiced now and for the foreseeable, uncertain future. As many educators find themselves both locked in and locked out, this article seeks to sort through the implications of this remoteness. The article builds on the work of William F. Pinar and George Grant, to argue that technology is an ontology shaping how we encounter who we are and the world in which we live. Caught within the tightening circle of a Covid-19 environment predicated on keeping our distance from one another, while we are connecting technologically, at risk is the complicated conversation, as well as attunement, that lie at the heart of teaching, even as teachers know that it is only through improvisational variations on these that one can hope to chart an ethical course forward.