I’ve been partaking in a load of online CPD with one of the organisations I work for. It suited me to get all the mandatory stuff over with in one week, rather than to let it drag on. There’s always value in attending. It’s important to be reminded of core ideas, and remember that I certainly don’t know it all, even if at the beginning of the session I think I might.

There is a problem, though.

I have a tendency to revert to rebellion if I have a strong opinion on something, asking disruptive questions that I know will hijack the meeting, or chucking in an unsolicited opinion like a gobshite hand grenade. Expert-level pain in the arse stuff.  And worse still, as it is happening and I witness myself doing it, I have a word with myself, and yet carry on doing it. 

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This only applies when my rant triggers are activated (Fundamental British Values is an old fave). It is not a result of indiscriminate smart-arse wittering. Oh no, I’m quiet as a diligent mouse when it’s brand new learning, or something I find tough to get my head around.

Zoom indiscretions

Maybe it’s due to Covid cabin fever, but my gobbery is becoming increasingly rampant when the CPD is via Zoom or MS Teams. Boundaries are blurred and my responses are even more uncensored. After a recent argumentative encounter, I came away from my computer quietly seething and decided to attempt a different strategy: disengagement. Yeah, I know, putting effort into making less effort is not World’s Greatest Teacher stuff, but perhaps better than being so exhaustingly on-purpose-difficult.

So the next time I was Zoom-bound and heard one of my danger topics brewing, I put my plan into action. On that occasion, it was the whorling eddy of bullshit around what Ofsted is looking for - why is this a thing when there is published documentation to detail what it actually wants?

Anyway, quick as a flash, I went to “Operation: Disengage”. Keeping my computer’s camera focused on just my face, I reached for my nail varnish and got involved in a full trotter tidy up, while only half-listening to the discussion, occasionally nodding, just to show that my screen hadn’t frozen.

It worked.

Later that evening, I told my husband about my new plan, expecting him to disapprove (making an effort is a big thing in our house). To my surprise, he casually boasted that he’d feigned wi-fi issues, turned his camera off and sneakily left a meeting for a full 20 minutes to come and have dinner with us, before slipping back into the meeting as if nothing had happened. I was outraged.

Reporting this news on social media, I asked if anyone else had been similarly shifty. Here are some of my esteemed colleagues’ responses:

• “I bought a shiatsu massager and then, in a subsequent meeting, tried it out. It’s bloody brilliant.”
• “Full online Tesco shop.”
• “I decided to try applying eyeliner with a flick (it went badly), at which point someone asked me a question and my rather bizarre image appeared full screen.”
• “I  groomed the cat.”
• “Had a bath. Silent and no camera for me, obviously! Not a meeting where interaction was required from me but I could flick mic on if comment had been needed.”
• “I ate a pot noodle.”
• “I had a poo. I turned my camera off, don’t worry.”

I am both scandalised and in awe. I tell you what, though, the next time someone’s camera is suspiciously near to their face, or, even iffier, if it is turned off, it’ll make me wonder what’s actually happening.  

Sarah Simons works in colleges and adult community education in the East Midlands and is the director of UKFEchat