Published in the Asheville Citizen-Times, April 17, 2020
The mood wasn't great in the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College English 111 class.
It was mid-March and students' lives were being upended by the coronavirus pandemic. Now they learned spring classes would be taught remotely.
"My students were concerned," said English professor Jon Rich. "They were saying, 'How is it going to be different? I didn’t sign on for an online class.' There wasn’t push back, but it there was apprehension."
Before the pandemic, Rich, a former journalist who worked at the Citizen Times, liked to play music before class to lighten the mood — and encourage students to be on time.
Now with classes happening through the video conferencing app Zoom, Rich had some new ideas. He told his department head about a few costumes he had stashed away. Some suggestions got "vetoed," but soon students were greeted by a persona Rich described as Elvis "with a middle-aged mohawk."
"They loved that," he said. "They said, 'Mr. Rich, we needed that.' I said I needed that too."
Requests began to come in. Batman. Thor. Darth Vader. He decided to let students vote. For one class he was supposed to be the teenage ninja mutant turtle Raphael, but he didn't have the costume, so he improvised, making a red mask out of a stocking hat and stuffing a green backpack with foam packing peanuts to make a turtle shell.
Rich emphasized that the costumes are only for before class, and that "the curriculum comes first." But he believes they have enhanced students' learning. Students can choose not to use video conferencing and instead use different remote learning tools that offer less interaction.
On the last day, May 8, he's encouraging them to wear their own costumes. Rich said he also has something special planned, though he doesn't want to spoil it, saying only, "it's going to be epic."