5.2 Teacher-student bond
Concerning the establishment of the “teacher-student” bond with participants online, it was noted that the bond was established differently with each participant. Without an in-person comparison, it was difficult to determine if establishing a bond was made easier or not by the distance-learning context. The student facilitators’ opinions were divergent as far as the ease of establishing a bond online. On one hand, session leaders noted that in general their bond with participants was good: “At first I was afraid we would have difficulty creating bonds, or that the distance would make it cold. But with some students I’m able to tease and laugh.” Many participants knew the session leader’s name, recognized and greeted them, and seemed happy participating and conscious that someone was interacting with them through the screen. The remote modality also seemed to inhibit shyness in some participants, owing to the familiar space they occupied: “They are alone, so they’re not being judged. In a group, you might be shy to sing, to be silly”; “For children who are more fragile as far as adaptations it can definitely help them to express, to be authentic more quickly.” Session leaders found themselves as part of youths’ daily reality: “Maybe that makes them feel we’re in their daily reality, because we’re not in a room they’ve never been in, that surely plays a role in establishing a bond.” On the other hand, the intermediary of a screen was sometimes seen to make human contact more difficult:
In the end, I got the impression that it makes the contact colder; for the student, what’s the difference between me and a show they watch on TV? . . . It’s not the same as establishing a bond in person, I’m very tactile when I teach, a mama hen, I give hugs—so all that [physical and psychological proximity], we don’t have it.
With certain participants, persistent shyness may have been a result of the remote modality: “If we were seeing each other in person, maybe the shyness would have gone way. There are still students who are shy or hesitant to do certain activities (e.g. withdrawing when asked to sing).”
Finally, the presence of parents was also perceived as very important for the establishment of the bond over a distance: “I get the impression that I would not have been able to succeed were it not for the parent.”; “I feel like in the first meetings it took several interventions from the parent, where they would say: ‘There, listen to X, look there, it’s on the screen,’ now that’s no longer necessary.”