6 years of COVID conversations
This week is my 6th anniversary of being freelance – a cause for celebration (it's tough out there, and I'm still here!) but also contemplation.
I realised recently that the students and parents I'm now interviewing in Australia experienced some of the most disrupted transitions to high school in 2020 - experiences that are still impacting them now. These are learners who are making decisions about university and will be enrolling (or not) in the next few years. Some of them still have pictures on their phones of awful online learning experiences and vivid memories of 'rotting' (their words) in their bedrooms for months at a time.
Being an education-focussed qualitative researcher has provided so many perspectives on this unique time in history, including:
Interviewing frustrated but hopeful students who got stuck in China after borders closed (2020)
Exploring the challenges of burnt-out educators under pressure to innovate even as their teams are struggling to stay afloat (2020 and 2021)
Talking to high school leavers and 1st year uni students about how weird school and uni feel right now (2021)
Hearing about love-hate relationships with technology and online learning from learners of all ages (2022)
Listening to global higher ed leaders describe a sector inspecting its wounds and checking for damage... (2022)
...then not knowing whether to celebrate or panic when enrolments bounced back, but public and government support went the other way (2023 and 2024)
Tracking down 'decliners' who applied to uni then walked away - and remembering there is a whole world of alternatives to uni out there (without the price tag) (2024)
…and exploring student equity from all kinds of angles, for those realising that something in the system has to change (2025)
As each year passes, the research briefs are getting more and more interesting, and I can hear new kinds of conversations - quiet ones for now, but they're getting louder.
To those who are genuinely curious about hearing the good, the bad, and the oh-my-god-how-do-we-fix-this, framed through the student experience and seen in the context of a whole system: I love working with you, and especially on the really difficult stuff.
Here's to many more wicked problems and uncomfortable conversations. I'm here for it!