New Year, New Fears - Cameron Ilavsky

 

    

    On March 14th, Sparta schools initiated their two-week quarantine break, intending to come back to school, just as regular, right after. Six months later, most of us haven't stepped foot in the building again. In recent days, my inbox has been filled with emails that would postpone the date to come back, statements that brought with them an onslaught of emotions. 

Since March 14th, the days have started melting together. Even with more free time, and even with the promise of upcoming normalcy, nothing felt real. It all seemed like fun and games at first, but then reality started to sink in, turning the situation dark. People fell into their own little universes, everybody having a different perspective on not only what should be done with the world, but even how we were living in it now. Some people felt hopeless and alone, disconnected from their close friends and classmates. Loneliness sank in much quicker now, solitude causing many to feel distressed or upset. 

With the addition of school to our schedules, it seemed like it would go a lot smoother. People would assume that we would be busy for most of the day, causing us to not be bored or lonely because we had something to fill our time. All it ended up turning into was undue stress. Not only did the foggy haze of quarantine make it hard to focus and keep track of your responsibilities, but the state of the world around us makes assignments seem obsolete. 

Our generation has borderline unlimited information at their fingertips, good and bad. We can learn what's happening in the world around us, and for 2020, that was a lot. Between protests and forest fires, there seemed to be a lot of things in the world that needed more attention than going back to school. It is a time when it feels like the world’s problems, our futures, are more important than the science slideshow due this weekend. 

In thinking about this, I ended up interviewing a few of my fellow students at SHS. For privacy reasons, I won't be saying their names. However, they brought up an interesting view on online schooling: people with bad home lives are trapped. School, as strange as it would seem, provided an escape away from many families and households, a much needed haven in some situations. Closing the school buildings meant that some students, on top of losing their biggest escape, also were expected to complete schoolwork, attend classes, and finish homework on time to receive full credit. 

Most people would assume that with the changes brought on, the changes that turned our lives upside down, the teachers would manage to be more lenient towards assignments and due dates. Instead of making that much-needed change, most students are now overwhelmed with the amount of schoolwork required with the circumstances at hand. Treating all of this like it is normal is pointless, as all of us can agree that this situation is far from normal. Many students find it much harder to learn in this online environment, causing their grades to fall for reasons that are not of their own fault. 

Not only is it harder to focus during online school, where you're expected to sit still and pay attention to a laptop screen for 6 hours, but it's hard to retain the information that you do pay attention to. Due dates are harder to remember, assignments are harder to keep track of, and it's especially difficult to find the break between work time and family time. Something that used to be determined by location is now determined by motivation, something a lot of us currently lack. 

Although the blame falls to no one, our desire to do things has almost melted away since quarantine started, the solitude bringing many negative feelings. Depression rates have spiked since quarantine, scarily evident in reports released by the CDC. Some adults tend to make it harder, not seeming to understand that our lives have quite literally been turned upside down, in what debatably could be the most important years for us to grow as people. It has been this way for a while, but that won’t make the situations better, only more scarily familiar with each day that passes. 

All in all, I think that online schooling, while a great idea in terms of flattening the curve of Covid-19 cases, is a terrible idea in most other senses. It makes it harder to focus, harder to grow, and most importantly, harder to live. I think whenever we have the safe option to, we should definitely go back to in-person schooling.