On Monday, the Grand Duchy’s pupils returned to their schools, after a week of remote learning. In order to avoid the spread of the virus, several rules are still in force and in secondary schools, the upper classes alternate between face-to-face and distance learning. An RTL team attended this special start to the new school year at Lycée de garçons in Esch-sur-Alzette.
Christian Welter teaches French and Italian at the Lycée de garçons in Esch. He has organised himself well in advance to be able to take care of his students from a distance.
Welter explains that since mid-March, the class had had video lessons every day. He admits that this may have been the exception, but he knew from the situation in Italy what was going to happen, and he was ready on 16 March. He points out that his students have absolutely no delays in this particular subject, and thanks to the small size of the class and there being a permanent exchange, it had worked well overall.
The situation becomes more complicated depending on the subject matter and when dealing with bigger classes.
According to Welter, smaller classes automatically bring about a different form of intimacy and interactions between teacher and students are far from being sterile. Bigger classes with 26-28 students, on the other hand, are a different story. Here, it is sometimes simply not manageable from a technical point of view that every student connects their camera and microphone. This, Welter explains, leads to the habit of everyone disconnecting except for the person speaking.
Inside the school, everyone wears masks all the time, and Welter states that he does not even really remember what most of his students look like without their masks on.
At the moment there are 750 pupils in the building every week while 200 follow classes from home, according to the headmaster of the Lycée de garçons d’Esch, Pascal Bermes.
In terms of coronavirus infections, Bermes states that his school recorded a total of 57 students, six teachers, two members of the school administration and one maintenance worker who tested positive for Covid-19. Three classes have been sent into quarantine since the beginning of the pandemic.
In order to limit the spread of the virus, the upper classes will continue to be taught alternately at home. However, the pupils that the RTL team interviewed clearly prefer to come to class, stating that they found it difficult to concentrate at home, often due to younger siblings. Internet problems are also a frequent issue, sometimes excluding students from meetings altogether because of a bad connection.
The full report in Luxembourgish:
