BY AHANA D – 9 YEARS OLD
Premier Doug Ford postponed the opening of schools for two more weeks. This decision has upset many people, not only because of how late they told us, but how difficult online learning can be for some families. I feel like they are playing mind games with us because first, they told us that we were going to be starting school on the 3rd, and then they told us that we would be doing online school for two weeks (until January 17th ). Online learning is one of students, parents, and teachers’ worst nightmares. I don’t mean to be a fence sitter, but I’m not so sure how I feel about an online school. There are pros and cons to it, which is why I will be explaining them in this article.
First off, students and teachers will be spending two weeks sitting down in front of a screen, which doesn’t sound exciting or interesting at all! No wonder people’s mental health is at risk. Studies say that online learning: can make you distracted easily, you do not get peer-peer interactions, which can make you feel unhappier, you don’t have as much motivation online as you would in person, and specifically, visual learners tend to struggle more than people who excel in both in-person and online learning. Additionally, the brain acts differently when you are at home than when you’re at school. For example, you would feel more relaxed at home than you would at school because school, in general, is very stressful and tiring.
Some positives are that: you can sleep in a couple of hours more, you have more confidence to participate or present in front of your classmates, and that you’re in a home environment which means you don’t have to wear school clothes. In my opinion, sleeping in is the best part of online school because I would normally wake up at 6 am to go to school every day, but now I get to wake up at 7 am or 8:20 am.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the power to decide if students go in person or not, which is why when they tell us we are going online we have to make the best of it. Something I would recommend teachers do to help their students learn and adapt better to online learning is by checking up on them frequently to see how they are holding up, playing educational games like Quiziz or Kahoot to make it fun, or giving them 1–2-minute breaks to stretch. I believe that if we all give our best every single day no matter what we are going through, it will make us live happier and feel accomplished.
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