I Skipped 5 Months of Online High School and Got a 99% Average
By: Serena Ge
Tags: Education, Education Reform, Productivity, Remote Learning, High School

I Skipped 5 Months of Online High School and Got a 99% Average

I set a goal for learning efficiently—and that meant skipping things that didn’t contribute to my learning Serena Ge Jun 4·7 min read

Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash

The School System Makes No Sense

Ever since I was in grade 7 I’ve found school to be pretty inefficient for learning. What do kids do in class these days anyway, you might wonder. Well besides dating popular kids, chilling with friends, getting into social drama, and chit-chatting about morning coffee with teachers, I guess kids also study at school too.

I am a Canadian senior high school student in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which is infamous for its heavy workload and stress. My classes took place over Google Meets from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and students sit in front of the laptop to listen to the lectures. Our assessments are based on assignments and tests that are based on the IB curriculum. And since my classes aren’t discussion-based, the goal is to simply understand the content.

I’ve always hated and loved school for different reasons. On one hand, I loved it because I got to see my friends and occasionally discover new love interests. Exciting things happened at school every day and all the laughing helped me work out my abs.

But I also hated school because I’m not really learning efficiently. Even in high school, where classes are supposed to be more rigorous, I discovered that a third of my peers already know the content, but half of the class is completely lost at what’s going on. This is a problem. Using the principle of deliberate practice, I know that the only way to achieve mastery is to focus on areas of weakness and maintain areas of strength.

School fails to help students learn efficiently because every single student — no matter what background they have in the topic — must sit through the same material and listen to the teacher talk at the same pace for the entire duration of the lesson. This is not an efficient way to learn for most students.

Online school is even worse than normal school

Online school removes the most valuable part of a class, which is receiving feedback on the content at hand. In real life, students can ask questions immediately about the content, so the teacher can address it just in time. This spontaneous process steers the student in the right direction and is known as the “feedback loop.”

This aspect is practically gone with online school. Have a question? Leave it in the chatbox and the teacher might or might not get back to you at the end of class, depending on if your question has drowned in the whirling flow of chitchat.

Personally, I was the kid in class who’s always asking questions and as a result, gained a deep understanding of the content by the end of every class. With online school, I felt disengaged and found myself lacking focus during class.

My Solution (It Worked)

What I did

With the goal of learning efficiently, I started to skip live classes. Instead, I play the recording after class at my own pace. I felt that doing so allowed me to learn deliberately — spending more time on concepts that I’m struggling with and breezing through other concepts that are easy to me. Sometimes my friends text me during class about something going on, but when I respond with “???” they immediately know I “skipped” again.

From 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (with one hour of lunchtime in between), I enter the Google Meet to type “here” for attendance, then brush the screen off to the side. During this time interval, I pay no attention to class whatsoever and work on extracurricular projects, learn new courses, and go on morning walks for mental health.

From around 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., I start replaying the lectures of the day. Going at my own pace, I condense five hours of class time down to around two hours of complete concentration. I skip the attendance part, replay at 2.3x-2.7x speed (Stay tuned for How I Trained Myself to Speed-Listen), and slow down or pause at places where necessary. When going through practice problems, I pause the recording to fully solve them on my own, however long that may take, and only move on once I know I am ready.

By the end, I feel like I absorbed every drop of content, even though I only spent around two hours learning and didn’t even “go to class”.

How I felt

Although this system sounds like it’s working well on paper, I certainly felt a lot of doubt, stress, and fear with this method at the time. This whole thing — condensing class from five hours long to two hours long — made me feel like a part-time student and felt like I wasn’t “trying hard enough.”

In my high school program, there’s this concept that good students should feel stressed about school to know they’re doing it right — a misconception that the time spent is directly proportional to the level of success. So when my peers text something like “Oh man I’m so stressed” at 1:20 a.m., this makes me feel stressed because I wasn’t feeling stressed or burnt out before, so I wonder if I’m putting enough effort into school.

So that was the worry. I felt like I wasn’t putting in the hours. I felt like I was cutting corners. I feared missing out. And I occasionally panicked when I looked at the class I’m recording and didn’t know what they’re talking about.

I feared playing back a recording and realizing it was a test (that would actually be a horror story right there). Logically, I knew that recording allows me to maximize efficiency, but I still felt a mix of doubt and anxiety.

However, when I playback the recordings at 6:00 p.m. and sense my level of concentration and efficiency, I realize it’s worth it after all. At the end of the day, I’m able to learn the material well, ace practice questions, so I remind myself that’s what matters.

Results

As the semester comes to a close, I opened my mark portal to see high-90s for all four subjects (calculus, physics, chemistry, history). This did not come as a surprise because I understood the content and so performed relatively well on my tests. I averaged all the subject marks to yield a final average of 98.75%, which rounds nicely to 99%.

If you’re wondering why it’s only 98.75%, not 100% or 200%, I reckon there are still many areas of improvement for next semester. But overall, this average mark has a great shot at making any top program or university in Canada (where I live), according to official sources. It’s also the highest year average of my high school career, so I can say I’m more than satisfied with the result.

Reflection

This result gave me the confidence to continue with my method of learning. I’m not sure where students were fed the idea that stress = trying hard, and spent time = success. These metrics are superficial and have no real meaning. The key to success is efficiency and result.

When you know your goals, the next step is to find the most efficient path to achieve the goal. School conditions students to fear breaking through the conventional path. As a result, students often fear seeking their own methods of learning that meet individual needs.

But at the end of the day, we are responsible for our own learning, and we need to take initiative to learn efficiently and effectively on our own despite the misconceptions about school.

Though this may seem obvious, it takes time to internalize this: it’s not about how tired you feel, how late you sleep, or how hard you feel like you’re trying. Sit down and define the goal of going to school: understand the content and be able to apply it.

That’s really all there is. If doing homework questions is getting repetitive, skip it. If online school is not helping you learn, then find another way to learn. Clearly define the goal, then take the most efficient path to achieve that goal and you’ll be unstoppable.

Should I Try This Method?

There are a few things to consider before jumping straight in. It’s important to consider how this method will work for your situation:

What type of subject are you taking? Are they lecture-based, STEM subjects (physics, math, science, computer science, etc)? Or are you taking discussion-based courses like English or philosophy? The goal is to learn efficiently, not exactly to skip class. Participating in discussion-based courses is likely the more efficient way to learn, whereas learning at your own pace generally only works for STEM subjects.

are you taking? Are they lecture-based, STEM subjects (physics, math, science, computer science, etc)? Or are you taking discussion-based courses like English or philosophy? The goal is to learn efficiently, not exactly to skip class. Participating in discussion-based courses is likely the more efficient way to learn, whereas learning at your own pace generally only works for STEM subjects. How will you spend your time during class? By skipping live classes, you just successfully freed up half of a day’s time. What will you do with all that time? Are you going to learn a new skill? Work on a personal project? It’s important to set a schedule or plan so you can use your time productively during school hours.

If your situation is perfectly suitable for this method and you want to try it, then I’d prompt you to just go for it! Take control of your own learning and do what’s best for yourself.

Takeaways

Despite differences in our backgrounds and situations, here are a few things everyone can learn from this experience: