By Arwen Servat De La Huerga, Y12
Due to the global pandemic COVID-19 situation, many students have had to quarantine. Because of this, all their academic success and learning processes have depended on the virtual schooling system, officially installed by the school last year. Therefore we have to ask: have students been successful academically while undergoing online learning? If not, should LGB change their approach to online schooling? And what better way to answer these questions than hearing from the students, either currently quarantined or having been in the past, what they think of remote learning.
According to some students, following online school successfully at home can vary depending on the teacher-student collaboration and communication. Meaning that, maybe because there are not a significant number of students quarantined, teachers are not used or do not have the reflex to interact with the students online. Therefore, most online students are not following up the class and come back more lost than ever from quarantine. However, this is not a one-way street: students are not used to being online while the teacher is in class and so do not adapt quickly enough to interact with the teacher. Due to the lack of communication, oftentimes students have no means of joining class from home, leading to either missing an opportunity to learn or having to video call classmates attending class in real life. Most students questioned about this agree that school has provided certain alternatives to follow up on their classes (ManageBac, Google Meet, etc) but that it nonetheless remains difficult due to a variety of factors.
According to the teachers, online schooling for quarantined students can only work if students and teachers work together in order to solve the problems caused by the online “classroom”. Working together really makes the difference. Students joining class virtually often get distracted and are lost in class, but teachers cannot perceive their cry for help through screens. This leads to education opportunity loss for the students, negatively affecting their academic achievement and performance. This may lead to a change in the student’s mindset about school – they lose the will to learn, achieve school goals, and the curiosity to ask questions. In addition, students are alone at home without their classmates and the typical socialisation that comes with being in class in real life, lacking the social support adolescents often need.
Clearly, the question cannot be directly answered: no one really thinks that the school is not giving enough alternatives for quarantined students. School online is sufficient for students to attend class, according to teachers and students – but the difficulties that come with virtual learning can be unprecedented. The struggle (mainly) does not come from the lack of the tools given by the school, but from the insufficient communication.
