When the principal announced over the intercom that we would be going into a quarantined distance learning, my whole class cheered and celebrated, oh how naive we were.

Looking back, I guess that ignorance was a breeze
I thought I knew everything but I was naive

It Gets Better by Rex Orange County (if you couldn’t tell he’s my favorite artist)

We never expected that it would be a something that would last more than a month, or that it was something that would shut down businesses and the whole world for that matter.

At first distant learning was going pretty smoothly as teachers gave us little to no work as they tried to figure things out, but when they did, hell soon froze over. Because of the fact that there was no real lessons to “teach”, many of my teachers gave out tons and tons of homework to make up for lost classroom time. It was like fitting 2 weeks of work into 1 and I got to pull my first all nighter to finish an assignment on time. Then my sleep schedule went out the window and into a different time zone as I soon began to go to bed at 4 am and wake up at 2 pm.

A lot of my friends just completely stopped doing work because they lost all motivation and some only did work for classes that had low grades. But me? Oh no, I could never do that because of my fear of disappointment. I hate getting yelled at or being asked to do something so I still did my work and even gave up sleep for it.

This crude system of assigning work and expecting the student to do it clearly hasn’t been a successful one for many teachers, so there’s debate on what the education system should be for the next for years.

I’ll start off with what worked and what didn’t for each of my classes.

English

Pro: Workload remained the same as it was when we were in school and lots of leniency and understanding in due dates.

Con: Not many zoom meetings as a class.

Math

Pro: Prerecorded lesson videos everyday to explain the chapter as we went through it. 2 zoom meetings a week and the workload remained the same as it was when we were in school. Leniancy in assignment due dates.

Con: Slader was too tempting to resist for homework help and I ended up barely passing my tests, but that’s a me problem haha.

History

Pro: The work did thoroughly cover what would have been a class lecture. I took the AP Exam and the memes that came with it gave me a few days worth of laughter.

Con: Maybe because it was an AP class that there was a heavy workload, but OH MY. THERE WAS SO MUCH WORK FOR THIS CLASS! This was the class that graciously gave me the opportunity to pull an all nighter. No leniency in assignment due dates.

Science

Pro: Tests got a bit easier and I got to raise my grade with the easier grading and assignments.

Con: Didn’t teach at all? Maybe one or two little teaching videos but other than that, Youtube was my best friend. No leniency in assignment due dates.

French

Pro: Assignments were actually very helpful in teaching the course. Weekly zoom meetings to help explain questions and misunderstandings, but I never went because I always slept through them.

Con: Workload was a little heavy in the beginning and there was no leniency in assignment due dates.

I liked the idea of a block schedule when I saw it because a lot of my friends that go to other schools have that system and I envy it. It can allow half the population of students to come to school at a time and have an in depth class as there is less classes per day with more time to learn. I just wonder how things like clubs, asb, and school events will work now as those things require face to face interaction.

In conclusion, if it weren’t for my fear of disappointment then I would be spinning around in my chair singing karaoke instead of doing my homework. Quarantine gave me a lot of opportunities to become closer to my family and friends and find new hobbies I enjoy. Sophmore year was a big loss but at least I get to have a cool story for when I’m old.