With very direct language, subtle and also rougher humor, which in some ears, baby with pauts, asbestos old woman, uchene with pepper on the tongue, a great person and colleague, always full of optimism and ready to give a smile and good words to each other – so many different words characterizes Māra Ozola. She is a sociolinguist, linguist, teacher, writer and mother of four who actively uses public space on social media to express her views, observations, and remarks on various developments in the education system and beyond.
I have been following the teacher’s blog entries on both the website and Facebook for a long time and I always enjoy reading her texts, which are so apt, served in a delicious sauce. I also read the comments on her recordings, thus gaining a small idea of the surrounding attitude towards the teacher’s creative expressions. Admittedly, she has both fans and those who may not tolerate Ozola’s directness. She herself laughs that at the record of vaccination against Covid-19, in which she spoke harshly about those colleagues who refuse to do so, there were even such remarks that it was time for her to retire, if she was so passionate about vaccination and afraid of getting sick. Mara also responds to such “benefactors” comments in Mark Twain’s style – “The news of my death is greatly exaggerated” – and is preparing for the new school year. At Murjāņi Sports Gymnasium, she will continue to teach students Latvian language and literature.
The conversation with Māra takes place on the “Zoom” platform, because quite simply we are separated by a polite distance, in any other way – we are both vaccinated against Covid-19 and could talk in person. Mara is very talkative, and we both continue to chat about other topics that seem to be out of focus in this article: the teacher’s perceptions of distance learning during a pandemic, the current feelings before the new school year, including the resistance of many educators to vaccination. , about the fact that the prestigious school has a “bean bark”, if the child is not happy and happy in it, about Mara ‘s hobbies and children.
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