I have been attending public school for my entire life. There have been highs and lows throughout that time, and sometimes I wished that I could have taken school from behind a screen in the comfort of my own home. But once I start thinking about all the good things that have come from the public school environment I realize that I wouldn't have it any other way. I've met my best friends at school, had many laughs, and most of all, learned valuable lessons that will help me for the rest of my life. You can't get anywhere close to the same experience of school through a screen. Distance learning would not be beneficial to students because it doesn't allow them to learn social skills, teamwork, and would limit the activities teachers could have them do.

I have only met a few home schooled kids in my life, but I'm not the only one who has had the same experience. My most recent encounter with one of them was when me and a friend were taking driving lessons in order to get our licenses. We had to get some other kid before we started however, and we asked our instructor what school he was from. He said that the kid was home schooled. We didn't think much of it until he got into the car. He looked totally normal, but when me and my friend greeted him he said nothing and quickly jerked his head to stare straight at the floor. It was very obvious he was uncomfortable around us and it began to make us think why. Pretty quickly we came to the conclusions it was because he was home schooled and lacked normal social skills, so he didn't know how to act around us. This is a perfect example on why distance learning would not be beneficial. Almost every job in the world and college you have to interact with people. School teaches us how to do that every day. We learn how to hold conversations, how to politely talk to adults, how to deal with conflicts, make friends, and many other important skills. You might be thinking that the student could still talk to other kids and adults through the screen, but they would only be present during class time which is when students are most independent and talking is at a minimal. Its the times during lunch, between classes or other free time when these skills are most developed.

From my first year of school I can still remember one of the first lessons we learned about; Teamwork. Every single one of my classes has always conducted multiple exercises every week to help learn team work. Whether it was doing labs together in science, working on a project in math, or being on the same team in P.E., the teachers strongly believed that teamwork is one of the most important skills someone can learn, and I one hundred percent agree. Learning to work with other people efficiently has countless benefits. There are some tasks that simply cannot be done without a team of people working together. Kids need to learn how to divide up work evenly to create efficiency and communicate Ideas. distance leaning simply doesn't allow for activities like that. Its just you in your own space not sharing the same resources as everyone else. You just wouldn't get the same benefit from distance learning, and In the real world most jobs just simply are not like that.

Some of the most exciting days of school are when teachers have us do something different other than reading, writing, worksheets, or other tasks most people think about when they think about school. Almost all teachers know that doing these same repetitive tasks everyday will just cause students to lose energy and interest, so often times they'll think of new activities or projects to do that often times feel like games. For example one of my favorite games is, "trashketball". The class gets split into teams and each team member takes turns answering different questions. If they get the question correct they get to attempt to shoot a basketball, normally made of crumbled paper taped together, and shoot it into the hoop, which is normally an empty trashcan. If they make it in, the team gets a point. This is one my favorite things to play in school that still maintains educational value. Teachers also use games like this to incentivise good behavior in the classroom, or good grades. There are many other types of alternate hands on activities like this that many other teachers use especially in classes like science. Many times these alternate lessons help us hold on to information better than if we were to just take notes off a PowerPoint or something traditional like that, and is one of the main advantages of public schooling. Sitting behind the computer limits the amount of alternative activities that the teacher can give because the student not physically being there doesn't allow them to participate as intended for activities like this.

Obviously there are benefits to distance leaning and there could be some kids who might suffer from a disease where distance leaning would be their answer, but if the option is there to go to normal school, the benefits outweigh the negatives too much to validate distance learning. Its only through traditional school in a class room with other kids that kids get to develop basic social skills and team working abilities, and it gives the teachers many more options for new innovative way to teach the kids. It just would not be nearly as beneficial for a kid to opt out of regular school for distance leaning.