Learning to live with it: Reflections on surviving critical times from Irish adult education

An announcement was made by the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar TD on the morning of 12th March 2020 that educational institutions would close from 6pm that evening, to support efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19 (DES, 2020). As in other parts of the world, this was followed over the coming weeks by closure of most sectors of Irish society in "unprecedented actions to respond to an unprecedented emergency” (Doyle, 2020). These are indeed ‘critical times’ as the title states in more than one sense. Critical for population health in the short and medium term certainly, but also critical for us as adult educators in how we manage our being and doing as we transition from proximity to remoteness and distance. We hope this paper, based on student evaluations and tutor feedback, captures some of our shared experiences and reflections about living with uncertainty, learning in uncertainty and finding hope in emerging possibilities.