My Experience with Remote Learning
By: Sanya Mahajan
Tags: Elearning, Technology, Zoom, Remote Working

Like most other highschoolers, I dread(ed) going to school for the most part. I enjoy being with my friends while I’m there, but I don’t really enjoy anything else. School days are long and tiring. We wake up at 6 or 7 and take a bus to school, staying there to learn until the end of the school day, at 3 pm. But after that, we have extracurriculars and clubs that could keep us at school till 6 pm, and by the time we get home, we’re mentally and even physically drained. But our day doesn’t end there. Some of us have club sports and most of us have homework. Many have SAT and ACT preparation to stress about.

In mid-March, when I heard that COVID may shut schools down, I was BEYOND thrilled. Of course, I was worried about the well-being of our country, but the idea of not waking up that early and being able to learn online brought excitement to me and many of my friends. The workload would probably be less, and there would be fewer tests as well. At that moment, it felt surreal and I thought I’d be living a dream.

On March 12, 2020, the principal of my school announced that due to the pandemic, the school would be shut down until April 6. The news was finally out. My friends and I were delighted and relieved but scared at the same time. Was COVID that bad? How long would schools be shut down? I had so many questions that no one knew the answer to at that moment. Nevertheless, I decided to celebrate the fact that we wouldn’t be in school for a little bit.

Logo of Zoom, an app many schools around the nation are using for remote learning and other purposes.

The first day of e-learning was chaotic for everyone, including the teachers. Like most other schools, we were using Zoom. It was pretty easy to adjust to and I found it really nice to learn from the convenience of home. At first, Zoom was a little awkward but after using it the first few days my classmates and I were more comfortable.

Later on, the governor announced that all schools in our state would be learning remotely until further notice. Obviously, the situation in our state was getting worse, which worried me. But this news also saddened many of our juniors and seniors, since this meant prom was canceled. I felt and still feel bad for them since prom and graduation are arguable two of the most essential high school experiences which they were not able to partake in.

About 4–5 weeks into remote learning, I started to get sick of it. I missed my classmates and my friends. I never thought I would say this, but I even missed school. Seeing people on Zoom was just not the same as seeing them in person. Classes got more boring and repetitive, and I only had my phone to distract me, which really didn’t help. All I wanted was to go back.

When the school year ended, I realized that although learning from home was much more convenient, it was also quite distracting. The quality of learning was much lower and I couldn’t focus as well. No one held me accountable for my work and since I already had A’s in most of my classes, I really didn’t care. I was just on the Zoom call for the sake of it and didn’t take away much of the content we learned.

I also took a semester of summer school remotely, which made me learn more things. In summer school, I had a whole new class and a new teacher that I hadn’t even met in person. This made the first day 10 times more awkward than it would have been in person since no one was willing to participate in discussions, etc. Not only that but since I’d never met my teacher and didn’t really know anything about her, I couldn’t really build a relationship with her. Our teacher barely knew us as well, which isn’t her fault. It’s hard to build connections on Zoom.

One reason many people (at my school) take summer school is to build new connections and get acquainted with the school if they’re new. Because of remote learning, summer school takers couldn’t do either of these. Many students do not participate or listen while on Zoom calls, which makes it hard for them to build relationships and connect with others. For incoming freshman, this isn’t exactly ideal because summer school is a good time for them to make friends for the upcoming school year. And obviously, you can’t familiarize yourself with a school when you’re learning remotely :-\.

All in all, while remote learning is better than nothing, I’ll definitely not be taking school for granted when I go back. Now more than ever, most of my friends and I want the high school experience, even if that means struggling in our classes. Learning on Zoom just isn’t the same, and it creates many distractions for me and my peers. Not only that but I need face-to-face interactions in order to succeed in high school. With all this said, I hope that in the upcoming months the condition of the pandemic improves, so that our nation can slowly start to come back normal.