The New York Times: What Students Are Saying About

Remote Learning
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/learning/what-students-are-saying-about-remote-
learning.html

Teenage comments in response to our recent writing prompts, and an invitation to join
the ongoing conversation.

Ben Cogswell, a kindergarten teacher in Salinas, Calif., in a still of a Flipgrid video he

made for his students. Related Student Opinion | Related articleCredit...Screenshot

By The Learning Network

April 9, 2020

Please note: This post is part of The Learning Network’s ongoing Current Events
Conversation feature. We invite students to react to the news via our daily writing
prompts and, each week, we publish a selection of their comments.
In “Coronavirus Is Shutting Schools. Is America Ready for Virtual Learning?” Dana
Goldstein writes about the great shift that began taking place in American education last
month. For this week’s roundup of student comments on our writing prompts, we asked
students how they have been coping with remote learning.

They told us about all the things they miss about going to school: their friends, teachers,
sports, extracurricular activities, even “the loud and crazy lunchroom.”

But some students have discovered that they enjoy getting to work at their own pace, set
their own schedule and be free from “the stressful environment of school.”

Others, though, recounted the challenges of distance learning, from struggling to

understand assignments and getting easily distracted to not having reliable internet. “If
you had told me a few months ago that I would be praying to go to school, I would’ve
laughed and called you crazy, but I would do anything to go back to my school,” Hannah
from Nashville said.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as
they were originally submitted.
Editors’ Picks

_________

‘I did not realize that I took my routine and school day for
granted until now.’
School is a place for building friendships, learning responsibility, and getting an escape
from the house, but it seems as though the Coronavirus has taken that all away from us.
For me, I loved getting to see my friends everyday in the school environment. Now that
it’s taken away from me, I realize now that school was my main source of
communicating with people. Now I feel as though I’m losing friendships I had at school
since we can’t go anymore. School also taught us responsibility. I had a schedule when
going to classes and when to wake up and go to bed. Now that I have no reason to have a
schedule, I have been going to bed and waking up much later than I used to. There also
seems to be a lack of motivation for me now to accomplish tasks because at school, we
were given an hour and a half each day to get work done in class but now I keep pushing
assignments back until the last second. This definitely won’t be beneficial to my work
ethic in the upcoming senior year for me … Thanks to the Coronavirus, I have decided to
make every moment of my senior year count and not take it for granted as I did for the
past three years of high school.

— Owen Midgette, Norfolk, VA

I did not realize that I took my routine and school day for granted until now. My online
school day consists of waking up at 10 am instead of 6 am, working on my laptop in my
bed instead of a classroom, and now I make my own schedule. While this sounds pretty
enjoyable for any teenager, it has made me miss school. I miss walking down the
hallways with my friends. I miss sitting in a classroom with a teacher and other
students, having discussions and asking questions. I miss the loud and crazy lunchroom.
I truly miss things I didn’t even know that I loved about my school. If you had told me a
few months ago that I would be praying to go to school, I would’ve laughed and called
you crazy, but I would do anything to go back to my school.

— Hannah, Nashville

Something I find really special about my high school is that we are really focused on
student-centered learning. We use a Harkness-style teaching method where all the
students and the teacher sit at a round table together and instead of learning through
lecturing, we learn from each other. Peer-to-peer interaction is a really pivotal part of
education at my school, and it feels like it falls so short in our distance learning. We use
Zoom and can see one another and our teacher, but everyone is always muted so as not
to interfere with background noise. Our classes have been cut down by ten minutes and
instead of having six classes a day, we only have three or four classes synchronously. I
feel like my education is not being fulfilled. I have a significant lack of motivation and I
miss the thought-provoking discussions I used to have with my classmates during
physical school. I am really anxious to get back to school and really foster my love of
learning through my peers.

— Emily Barkley, Lawrenceville, NJ

‘The workload has been overwhelming.’

“Oh my goodness … Why there is so much homework?” This was my first reaction to
online study as I looked at the homework checklist. Due to the outbreak, most activities,
including daily clubs, are canceled at present, thus we do not have much to do at home.
At least teachers believe so; therefore, tons of homework overwhelms us everyday.
However, we actually get much to do everyday besides homework: standardized tests,
such as TOEFL, SAT, AP, etc., needed to be prepared; activities that could be done
indoor had to be completed … Homework is the straw which breaks the camel’s back.
How I hope that assignment could be a little less and more time could be controllable by
ourselves! I am now in China. Online study has already taken place for 2 months so far.
Sometimes I really wish to go back to school having lessons face to face with teachers
and classmates. School is not only a place for study, but a place to prepare us for future
life when we embark upon complicated society and interpersonal relationship. Online
education cannot replace school system thoroughly in this aspect. I really miss normal
school days. Is the day of returning far?

— Sophie Dai, WLSA Shanghai Academy

The workload … has been overwhelming. The thought process of my teachers seems to
be “Oh they have all of this free time now, so I can assign them more work than I
normally would.” Or at least something along the lines of that, because my teachers
haven’t let up one bit. That’s been the most challenging part of remote learning, because
I get easily distracted when I try to work in my house, and that I have even more work
than normal, it’s challenging to get everything done. I have been able to keep up with
what we’ve been learning for the most part, but it would be nice to have a teacher that
could answer my questions and help me in person.

— William, The Barker

I’m in my second week of online distance learning and it’s exhausting! Yes, school now
starts at 9 am and we end at around 2:30, so it’s not like I’m doing school work all day.
However, now I’m on the computer for about 4 or 5 hours at a time. Before the whole
pandemic happened, I only spent about an hour, maybe 2 on the computer both at
school and at home. At the end of the day, I don’t want to see another computer for a
while. I actually did some research (on the computer) and I found that I was suffering
from computer fatigue. Yep, it’s a real thing.

— Miriam, Oakland, CA

I also find it very hard to find an ‘escape’ from school. Since it all takes place at my
home, destressing has become more difficult because I feel like school is there with me
the entire day. I really hope, in the near future, we will be returning to our school since I
am not receiving the best education at home.

— Zoe V., Nashville, TN

‘I find it impossible to actually learn anything new through

the distance learning.’
From what I have been through for the past two weeks is that online schooling is really a
double edge knife. For example, it’s quite nice working at your own pace so you’re able
to be less stressed with deadlines. But at the same time because of that, I have had a
great deal of trouble keeping up with all of the work that my teachers have been putting
onto me. That’s mostly because my pace is slower than most of my other classmates
because my dyslexia and ADHD make it a lot harder to keep things on track because of
how free things are. My teachers have been very understanding about it but there is only
some much that they can do and I’m honestly quite scared for my end of the year grades.
I have done fine this year grade-wise A’s and B’s but since this started they have been
going down a bit and I’m not sure what to do because I’m doing what I can but it’s not
doing anything to help my grades go up. So I’m just praying for the best at this point.

— Stephan T, Easton CT

I enjoy the new schedule that internet school has given me, since I finally have time to
sleep as much as I need and feel well rested and ready to work. Though my new schedule
is beneficial, I find it impossible to actually learn anything new through the distance
learning. It’s easier for me to get distracted and be lazy with my work, so I’m starting to
hate the daily mundanity of distance learning. I never thought I’d want to be back in
school until now.

— Cali, King of Prussia, PA

Digital learning hasn’t been the best experience for me. I’m constantly caught in this
game of tug of war of too much work and too little. Sometimes I’ll have three projects
and four assignments due in one day and other days, I’ll have nothing. The lack of social
interaction I, as well as my classmates, are enduring is also a huge factor in me not
enjoying online schooling. Only one of my classes has actual online meetings where we
can talk, while the others just keep posting work. I can’t learn like that though, so I
haven’t really retained any of the information I just spit back at them for a grade.

— Emma B., Cass High School, Georgia

‘I’m often anxious that I will not be able to join and

maintain access to online classes and assignments.’
Online school has been a stressful process for many of my friends and me. I live in an
area where internet access and WiFi are hard to get and, as a result, I’m not only
stressed about school but I’m often anxious that I will not be able to join and maintain
access to online classes and assignments. Working at home is hard for me as well since
there is no distinct separation of school v.s home. Normally at school, I am able to focus
as it is a work environment and I am constantly communicating face-to-face with those
around me. At home, I want to get up and go outside and stop staring at my iPad, it
gives me headaches and I am tired of looking at it after 4-5 hours a day. Many of my
teachers have been seemingly understanding of the issues caused by online school, but
at the same time, they are continuing to give the normal work-load.

— Kitty, Stockton, NJ

So far, no, our schools have not yet switched to online. However, they have given us a
long list of websites and activity suggestions to keep students occupied in learning while
the School District figures out what to do for us … My sister and I just recently came up
with our own schedules (which consists of some of the suggested websites and activities
of our own) which was fun! I started my school schedule today, since I just got off of
Spring Break. My biggest concern, if they do switch to online (which will most likely
occur soon) is the lack of technology my family has (like Dana Goldstein writes about in
the first paragraph of the article). The School District just sent out a survey to see who is
lacking the school supplies necessary to be involved in online school, so hopefully they
will be able to rent out computers to families who need them, like mine. We only have
one laptop, and sharing one with a timed schedule would be impossible! I’m keeping my
fingers crossed! :)

— Leah, Springfield, OR
Image

Sarah Giddings, a high school teacher in Ypsilanti, Mich., during a collaborative meeting
with a student about her progress in geometry/art class.Credit...Screenshot

‘I miss seeing everyone, especially my friends.’

Out of the concerns that Ms. Goldstein expresses, the most relevant one is how schools
provide so much more than academics. Social interaction, a way to exercise … I miss
seeing everyone, especially my friends, even that teacher who talks too much … I mean,
at least they’re there to explain the assignment. Zoom calls and texting and Google
Hangouts just can’t replace face-to-face interaction. I’m a dancer too, and dance has
always been so infallible to me, I felt like even if schools shut down it would somehow
still be there. But it wasn’t. Sometimes I just feel really lost because I feel like I don’t
have anything to hold onto. I’m just trying to do well in “class” and waiting for this to
end.

— Julia A, California

I too believe that school is more than just academics alone. School is what makes the
basis of our early lives, 14 years of work, stress, and success. Not to mention all the great
people you meet along the way, such as our mentors and teachers, as well as our lifelong
friends. The activities I miss the most in school are going to my locker early in the
morning, having quick chats with friends and colleagues, and roaming the halls listening
to music. After school activities are another story, I miss going to track practice, making
jokes with friends on a local loop (1.5 mile run around campus), and getting a good
workout in for the day (thanks Mr. Frazer).

— Ethan Davila, New York

‘I am actually quite fond of it.’

Last week was the second week of E-Learning for my school, and I am actually quite
fond of it. While I do understand the social aspect of school — as someone with an
Anxiety Disorder lack of sleep and work load gets to me quickly, making this honestly an
enjoyable experience for me. I feel as though I can learn the material at my own pace
and on my own time, with breaks when I need them. With the stressful environment of
school being significantly reduced, in my mind the pros of E-Learning outweigh the
cons. I enjoy getting to know my teachers and classmates but I think there is a lot to be
learned from the teaching and learning style we’ve had to embrace.

— Ella Mastin, Glenbard West HS

With the new shift to online schooling, I feel like an adult working from home. I get to
organize my work schedule so that it works best for me, and I get to complete all of my
work from the comfort of my own room. In the mornings I put on a nice shirt, so I look
put together when attending online instructional Zoom or Microsoft Teams meetings,
but what the camera, my teachers, and my peers cannot see is that I am actually
lounging around in the comfort of my sweatpants.

— Tracey N, Dawson HS

Before a normal school day involved me waking up at 5:45 and returning home at 3:30.
Now, I wake up at whatever time I’d like, which has had a positive effect on me,
reducing my levels of stress overall. I find that I am able to stay on task effectively, as I
am able to work at my own pace and at the time I choose to. I find myself adequately
occupied with work, as I have spent an average of 3 hours a day on schoolwork, which I
feel is the same amount of work I completed in school, with the rest of the hours wasted
on irrelevant information. I miss the social aspect most of school, as a social life is
impossible to maintain virtually … In addition, the freed time has allowed me to pursue
interests not supported by the public school system, as I have had more time to learn to
code, and even accomplished creating a Virtual Private Network from scratch.

— David Vallejo, Miami

Since I can plan out my day myself, I feel it suits me better than what school puts
students through, though it is challenging to learn new topics of some subjects without
direct explanation from a teacher.

— Alicja Paruch, NY
‘A lot of the time, I get confused.’
I am starting my third week of remote learning and let me tell you, I can not wait for the
day this whole thing is over. My school went directly into remote learning around the
time the first confirmed case was found in my state and I do not like it. I find myself
getting distracted much easier and find myself procrastinating more and more. I’m not
motivated to complete some work until I realize it will impact my grade, unlike normal
school. A lot of the time, I get confused. I don’t have the luxury of being able to ask my
teacher why I need to do different when I don’t understand something or don’t know
what to do and a lot of the time, an email doesn’t get back to me in the time I am
completing my work.

— Tommy J, Saco

My first weeks of online classes have been hard because it’s difficult to stay on task with
all the work we are being assigned by teachers. The work isn’t necessarily hard but
figuring out how to use the different websites and when a new assignment has been
posted takes a while. I am getting better at this as I go just like my classmates but
sometimes I’ll miss some assignments I didn’t realize were due.

— Gerlanda Di Stefano, Malverne NY

As someone who’s family is financially stable and has access to a computer, I can say
that it hasn’t been extremely hard for me to get my work done. It was hard whenever I
didn’t understand something and instead of being able to ask my teachers and get an
immediate response, I had to email them and wait for them to email me back. I believe
that I have it very lucky and I know that some of my peers are struggling a lot.

I know that my school is trying very hard to help the kids, like providing food for
children that relied on school lunches and having a curbside pickup for laptop rentals.
They also have paper packets that they mailed so if you didn’t have access to the internet
you could still continue learning and not get too far behind, which helps eliminate Dana
Goldstein’s concern in that area, but there are still valid points that Goldstein makes
that are still problems at my school as well.

— Morgan Sharp, Anna, Texas

Here in England we were all told that schools would almost certainly not shut and if they
did it wouldn’t be until after Easter. However, our PM closed schools until September
and cancelled all exams all of a sudden, even though he said a few hours before he
wouldn’t even close them for two weeks so none of our teachers were prepared.
Frustratingly, my school isn’t using Zoom or Google Classroom (and neither are any
others that I’ve heard of) but are instead putting work on to the shared area online
which we have to manually search through hundreds of files everyday to find that work
that has been set for our classes. Only one subject, English has actually given us
instructions and tasks to complete with a weekly deadline — the others have just
uploaded random files and past papers etc and not told us what to do or when its due …
I find it really hard to be motivated to do work / study for exams I am not even going to
be taking. I wish my school would make all subjects give us specific tasks with deadlines
and maybe use online resources such as Google Classroom so that we have more
structure.

— Rachel, London, England

‘I’m missing out on my “high school experience.”’

The worst part of this experience is the fact that I finally made it to high school and now
I’m missing out on my “high school experience.” Everyone talks about how high school
is some of the greatest years of our life, but right now it’s not off to a spectacular start.
I’m only a freshman, but the poor seniors are getting hit the hardest. Not being in school
means there’s no sports, no school dances like Prom, and there might not even be a
graduation at this point. Imagine getting to senior year and thinking that it’s going to be
the best year overall, and then getting told that you won’t get to finish your final season
of the sport you’ve played your whole life, or you can’t go to your last dance with the
people you’ve been with all of high school. These people might not get to even
experience graduation. All of their hard work for the past four years might get handed to
them in the form of a PDF or a document in the mailbox.

— Natalie, Yakima, WA

I have been training for weeks to make state competition for poetry interpretation in
Speech and Debate, and to see all my hard work go down the drain is disheartening. I
felt like that opportunity was robbed from me. Since I am a junior, I now have to wait
until senior year to attempt to attend state and it would be my last chance to do it. I
really wish I was able to give it a shot this year.

— Jessica Franklin, Dawson High School, TX

Personally the main thing I miss is my sports season, I was looking forward to this years
lacrosse season the whole year and it was heart breaking to be on day 4 and have it be
cancelled.

— James, Barkoukis

One of the things I’m missing about school is theater. Before school was closed, I had
two shows that were going to be performed the next week and now I don’t even know if
I’ll ever be able to perform the shows. Overall, this remote learning is an F in my book.

— Kayla C., Cass High School, Georgia

Image

Christopher Bakk, a social studies teacher in Racine, Wis., in an introduction video he

sent to online students this year.

‘I’ve had to become my seven-year-old brother’s teacher.’

Everyday my motivation to do my work decreases and recently all my assignments have
been turned in late causing my grades to drop. It has also been very difficult because I’ve
had to become my seven-year-old brother’s teacher. My parents aren’t very fluent in
English, so they aren’t able to help him with his schoolwork. It’s very challenging to keep
up with both his work and my work at the same time.

— Adriana Segura, Cass High School, GA

The switch to distance learning has been hard for my family. I’m lucky enough to go to a
school that provides each student with a computer, but for the first two weeks my
younger brother (age 9) didn’t. He was sent home with a folder packed with work, but
once that ran out, his teacher expected him to go digital. We have a computer, but it’s
barely functioning, let alone good enough to run the programs they expected us to use.
This was later remedied, but he’s also on an IEP which means he’s used to one on one
learning for math, science, and reading as well as holds a general animosity towards
learning in general. We’re terrified for what this will do to the progress he’s made. My
mom has been struggling to teach it to him so she’s been enlisting my help. I’m happy to
do it, but now I’m tackling two work loads a day on top of everything else going on.

— Kaylee Tener, Holicong Middle School

‘I’ve noticed that staying on task gets harder as the week
goes on.’
The only thing familiar about my “school days” is getting up in the morning. The
similarities come to an abrupt stop there. I eat breakfast each morning with my mom,
who now works from home, and converse with her frequently throughout the day.
Having a chance to connect with her in this way has is something I am grateful for.
During the scheduled lunch break my school includes in its remote learning class
schedule, I frequently take naps, mostly out of boredom. Far more distractions — my pet
and the availability of food all the time, to name a few — abound as I try to remain
engaged in classes and complete assignments. For the most part I am on task, but some
of the very same distractions I deal with in school, such as receiving texts from friends
or my phone serving as a distraction in and of itself — seem much harder to resist at
home. For the most part, though, as a high school senior, I know and accept what work I
have to complete and I return to the tried and tested routines that have served me well
throughout my high school years.

— Aaliyah Rogers, Martin Luther School-Maspeth, Queens, NY

A school day for me is very different than what I’m used to. I now wake up an hour after
I would normally be getting to school, so that’s three hours of extra sleep. I think
because of this, my sleep schedule is messed up and I don’t have the structure we used
to all get. I’ve noticed that staying on task gets harder as the week goes on. We’re
obviously not at school working with our classmates and teachers, so it is hard for me to
focus … There’s no structure, which is making it hard to get up and be productive.
Overall, online school makes time management extremely difficult and I feel like I’m not
even learning in some of my classes.

— Riley S, Brooklyn, NY

‘How harshly are AP exams going to be graded now?’

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Collegeboard announced massive changes to the AP
tests: students only have 45 minutes, the tests are now only free response questions, and
the major twist, the exams are now online. With this new information, as well as the fact
that Collegeboard cut down on the curriculum we are being tested on, many of my
classes switched from learning new material to review mode. Instead of preparing for
multiple choice questions, I must now scramble to prepare for a writing only test that
will determine my fate on whether I receive college credit for the many AP classes I have
spent a year taking. My biggest fear now is that it is unknown how the new shortened
tests will be graded, leaving me with only the written portion to get a good score on the
exam. This added stress was not something I needed in an already stressful year.

— Ryan C, Dawson High School

As a junior, I have been very stressed about how the rest of the school year will pan out.
Constant thoughts running through my head are, “When am I going to take the SAT?
How harshly are AP exams going to be graded now? What are colleges going to do for
admissions next year?” All of these questions are constant thoughts that most teenagers
my age are thinking about right now. The work that we are being provided with now is
only supplementary; which, does not help students stay motivated to get their work
completed. Teachers are doing the best they can but the ones who truly care about their
students’ mental health and education are putting in extra time just to help. Sadly, I
have one teacher who I know I can count on to go to because she has been sending out
constant emails about our AP exams and always asking how we are doing. If as many
teachers cared as much as she did, then maybe more students would want to do their
work …

— Amaya Lancaster, Branham High School, San Jose, CA

‘I feel for our teachers who have had to change everything

about their classes.’
Luckily I have pretty good computer knowledge, but like Ms. Goldstein pointed out, I
feel for our teachers who have had to change everything about their classes. Asking
teachers to all of sudden offer the same kind of curriculum online is impossible, so it is
important we stay patient … I’m not really thinking about what I need from my teachers
as much as what our teachers need from us. All we have to do is stay on task and take
this seriously while they have to change their jobs from in school to online in a matter of
days. The workload isn’t unbearable and the teachers are very lenient, but as long as we
don’t take advantage of this and stay diligent we can all get through this.

— Estevan, Corpus Christi, Texas