Well the first bit of good news is that the We Are The World Blogfest #WATWB is back again for another month and has been running for years. As life changes for some of us it can be a slog, at times, to keep up the momentum. There are months where we struggle to find enough co-hosts. If you have been with us a while, and may be able to help, contact one of our co-hosts.
Speaking of co-hosts, this month our valiant leaders are:
Eric Lahti – https://ericlahti.wordpress.com
Susan Scott – http://www.gardenofedenblog.com/
Please hop on over to their pages and others on the #WATWB.
Now for a late edition of some other good news.
Dr Murad Jehangir Yusuf Tayebjee. Image from ABC Life, accessed 2 August 2020.
As the coronavirus aka COVID-19 hit, many schools, universities and other educational centres rapidly moved to a more online presence in all manner of operations. This can be very socially isolating for students and staff so…
Dr Murad Jehangir Yusuf Tayebjee wrote letters to his students. We pick up the report from ABC News Australia in its ‘Life’ team.
Dear students,
As I submit your final grades for this term, I wanted to take a moment to write you a note.
Maybe you made it to university after studying hard in year 12. Maybe this is part of a career change for you, or a return to study after having kids.
Whatever your story — and there are as many stories as there are of you — you certainly didn’t expect to undertake your 2020 undergraduate year in the middle of a global pandemic.
We didn’t expect it either.
He moved on to outline some of the things they may be doing, like getting their hands dirty and building small-scale solar powered cars.
Tayebjee even told them that they inspired him by staying with the course. What an encouraging teacher from the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). You can read more of the story yourselves.
Lock-downs have been really tough for people. This fellow, who admitted that he too, “had to adapt fast”, adapted well. He not only engineered his courses, but innovated the communication needed in order to reach his students.
Those who follow this blog know that I love poetry and also try to share a poem with the story.
Poet, Michael Ryan, writes of letters in an institution. Just like lecturers use their imagination to reach students, so too do poets, like Ryan, explore the world of the imagination. An excerpt is below. Full text at Poetry Foundation.
Letters from an Institution
The ward beds float like ghost ships
in the darkness, the nightlight
above my bed I pretend is a lighthouse
with a little man inside who wears
a sailor cap and tells good old stories
of the sea. The little man is me.
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