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.”