Have you ever had a bad day at school and wished you could learn from home? Well, many schools offer this and students very much benefit from being able to attend classes from home via the internet and video calling because online classes benefit students who have a hard time commuting to school, allows for individually paced learning, and eliminates the negative consequences of the social environment at school.

Many students have a hard time commuting to school, whether that is due to distance, financial, family, or health related reasons. Online classes benefit the students who have a hard time getting themselves to school in the morning, and they benefit everybody by having the roads being less crowded during rush hour. This reduces the frequency of crashes, especially student driver crashes, and even benefits the student pedestrians who have to risk getting hit when crossing roads. I personally am a student who has to walk to school due to both parents having to work in the morning, and I have found that the main roads around the school are generally unsafe and the rate of crashes are high. There was a time when I was walking to school, and another student driving swerved onto the sidewalk and came inches from hitting me with their vechicle. This was not only scary, but proves how unsafe the commute to school can be for everyone involved, whether it is the walkers or the drivers, and online classes would eliminate this issue entirely. Allowing students to take class from home is also a more financially appealing option for students who are tight on money and can't afford to pay for gas or an uber to get to school everyday. Less vehicles on the roads is also more environmentally friendly, for this would reduce the hundreds of gallons of gas pollution poured into the air everyday. Lastly, eliminating the commute to school by allowing students to do their work from home is a much more manageable option for students with health issues, whether that be a disability, broken leg, respitory issues, or even just mental health issues. I personally have many friends who have mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, and commuting to school while having an anxiety attack is generally unsafe and runs a high risk of crashing. Students with the more direct problem of a broken leg also benefit from being able to stay home to learn by being able to take their time to rest their injury and look after it as needed, while still getting their education.

Online classes are also beneficial to students by allowing for individual pacing for each student, which maximizes the ability for the student to learn. Online classes and video based learning helps because each online class can be replayed and referred back to as needed by the students. This also allows students to take their time learning and understanding concepts, which allows them to go at their own pace. Some may argue that individual pacing is unfair because some students will have more time to learn the concepts than others, but this is simply the entire point of individualized learning through online classes. Students that need more time can use their extra time to learn, while students who feel proficient enough to move quickly don't have to be slowed down. It can be seen as the same way a student who gets a tutor for a class is not cheating or getting an extra advantage, they simply are getting the extra help and practice that they need to be up to speed. Having this ability to refer back to previous classes by rewatching the video for that class also allows students to remember little details that they otherwise would have forgotten during in person classes, and helps the students who are absent during class. This not only benefits the students, but also the teachers who may not remember what happened during a previous class. Students have to miss school all the time for health, family, or sports related reasons. Being able to attend class online would help these students, as they would be able to access their class from anywhere they go, as long as there is an internet connection. I personally would have greatly benefitted from online classes during the competition season for cheer, as I had to travel to many different states far away and had to miss a lot of school for it. If I had the option to watch my classes online, I could have kept up with school work and not had to deal with the stressful pile of make up work that had accumlated while I was gone.

Students would benefit from being able to attend class from home, as this would eliminate the negative consequences of the social environment that is present at school, and would allow the students to focus more on their education and less on the social aspects of school. When packing thousands of teenagers into a building together and forcing them to learn, there are bound to be students that don't get along which can lead to bullying, mental health issues, and social issues. This is simply an inevitable part of school, but by allowing students to do class from home, the students no longer have to face the social enivornment at school that not only negatively affects the mental health of students, but also their ability to focus. In fact, in a nationally conducted study, 87% of students said the social enivornment at school had in one way or another negatively impacted their overall wellbeing. Over half of the students surveryed also said that they felt their ability to focus had been affected by the environment present at school, which negatively impacted their grades. Distance learning eliminates these issues almost entirely, as students are no longer forced to be in an environment they don't feel comfortable in.

Distance learning benefits students by reducing the problems with commuting to school, allowing for students to work at their own pace, and minimizing the negative consequences of the social environment at school and all schools would benefit from it.