Because of the increased amount of COVID-19 cases that have happened around the world, schools will not meet in person until it is safe to do so. This has impacted many full-time students and has led to virtual learning throughout California and much of the country. This has caused many students’ environment and mindset during school to slowly change.
Additionally, it has also caused many events to be canceled as well with sports, clubs, or anything that would usually happen at the beginning of the school year. Since most schools are doing remote learning, Zoom calls are now being used to give full-time students their education. How has this affected students? How have they been handling and maintaining their schoolwork and social lives? Three seniors from James Logan High School in Union City expressed how they felt about the issue.
“I think my life is a little more laid back, but a little more stressful at the same time, Krysten San Diego, Logan senior, said. “It seems like the teachers believe that virtual learning is an opportunity to give more work than we usually would have.” This demonstrates how remote learning can cause students to feel overwhelmed with school and have a hard time balancing everything out.
According to The New York Times article, What Students Are Saying About Remote Learning, students miss their classrooms, hanging out with their friends, seeing their teachers, and sports/extracurricular activities. Students also state that with remote learning, it is much more difficult to concentrate and understand specific assignments. According to the same article, students from around the world have expressed how they feel about remote learning. One of those students stated how it caused student’s routines for school to dramatically change from waking up at 6 AM to waking up at 10 AM instead. Students also had to go to their laptops instead of their classes. Doing this consistently can feel draining and tiring at the end of being on a computer for seven hours every day.
Adding on to that, Senior Derrick Chen also has an opinion about remote learning. He states that his life hasn’t changed much since he’s always carried heavy workloads and this year doesn’t feel as overwhelming as others feel it is.
“Due to virtual learning, it feels as if teachers are asking more of us for every class, and still expect us to be on top of things. This is difficult for students like me due to a lot of commitments outside of school.,” Chen said. However, he doesn’t see virtual learning as all bad.
“I believe there are pros and cons to virtual learning. The pros are that the lectures can be recorded and reviewed for future references, and students can look back at something,” Chen said. “The cons are the lack of motivation by students, the limits by computers and network connections, and the organization of classes.”
In Larry Ferlazzo’s article, What Students Are Really Thinking About Online Learning, it explains how remote learning has caused students to feel overwhelmed by the amount of work being assigned during remote learning. It can cause students who have always been focused on their school work to constantly be distracted since we are at home now. It also states how just being in the classroom environment has helped various students focus better and also helps students with self-discipline. Overall, remote learning has had a negative impact on many students that are still in school.
Lastly, senior Ashley Wu articulates how since remote learning was unpredictable, it caused her anxiety to increase.
“I realized I have so much time during the day to do my work, but I still feel confused and lost. I usually check Canvas and my email twice a day to see if I missed out on anything,” said Wu.
Wu is not alone in her perceptions. Many students have a jumbled mess of feelings about remote learning and how it’s difficult to balance their school work with the environment they are in. The article What Students Are Really Thinking About Online Learning, states that the majority of the students that go to school in Sacramento feel as though remote learning has caused a gap in their motivation and mindset.
In conclusion, virtual learning has caused many ups and downs for students and has led to some losing motivation and missing the classroom environment that most students are used to. Students are being easily distracted and show how remote learning can cause exhaustion from going to one zoom call back to back. Being assigned multiple assignments at once can cause students not to be able to maintain and manage their time during school — which can have an impact on their social lives as well. Students shouldn’t feel overwhelmed and stressed during remote learning and teachers needs to understand that it can be tiring for some.
