Hi all,

As you are all (painfully) aware about at this point, state of emergency has been lifted a short while ago, and for a good many ALTs, its been a few weeks now since returning back to school, working at full capacity. Maybe you're seeing colleagues and students practice the 3 C's, maybe you aren't... and maybe you're feeling a lot of things given everything that has been happening, and continuing to happen in the world today.

We want you to know that its ok to feel everything that you're feeling in this difficult time, and that we are all here for each other.

We would like to ask once again to please be kind, understanding and supportive to one another at this time! We would like this to be a safe place where everyone can come together, share classroom ideas, their experiences so far, what the current plan is on keeping you and those around you safe, frustrations, combating summer heat and shortened holiday breaks, effective ways where you can continue exchanging culture during these difficult times and so on. We would also like to ask for you put any posts relating to classroom ideas or discussions about how to introduce x in class (e.g. recent events across the globe) in here, so that all information can be easy to find in this post!

To our understanding, people are being given different advice/guidelines by tantos/supervisors or your fellow JTEs on how to teach a class (or not depending on circumstances) or what type of activities fit best for COVID-19 situation. Maybe some are more lax, and some are more strict. Regardless, we ask that you keep yourself safe and informed during these crazy times.

Whether you are presenting activities or class either in person or online, everyone will be experiencing different restrictions (a common one being group activities no longer being possible), so please be mindful that every person's experience is different when responding to people's posts.

Side note; There's already enough grief as it is across the globe, and a lot of people are hurting & upset. Nobody needs to add to this with any negative posts to other users. We all want change for the better.