Quality Education during Pandemic (draft no. 4)

Right now, students around the world are experiencing the unprecedented impact of COVID- 19. From school closures to online lectures and classwork, this pandemic has put an enormous strain on students and completely changed how we all go about our academics. It feels as though the workload is never-ending, and the assignments keep coming at us. However, behind all this online work, is there any real learning going on?

Many students feel that school has become an endless cycle of nearly missing deadlines, quickly doing assignments, hitting submit before 11:59 and hoping for the best. Compared to in-person classes, which are much more hands-on in nature, virtual learning provides many more opportunities for students to fall behind. Once you’re behind or are struggling to keep up, it starts to feel like school is just a bunch of busywork as the pressure builds on you.

It’s hard to carve out specific time for each class with work and other extracurriculars, unlike when you could schedule an in-person class for a set time each day. Squeezing in schoolwork whenever you’re not at work severely inhibits the amount of information you can absorb. In combination with possible food or housing insecurity because of COVID-19, it’s nearly impossible to feel like you’re genuinely learning anything.

Students aren’t the only ones feeling left behind, though. Many professors and teachers were utterly unprepared to be thrown entirely online this semester. For those who have never taught virtual lectures or uploaded all of their classwork online, there’s a learning curve there, as well. Since this pandemic is one of the most impactful events in many of our lifetimes, you can’t expect the first semester back at school to go smoothly. Teachers have never encountered an obstacle like this before. Everyone needs to be comfortable and informed before we go back to legitimate education.