Editor’s Note: The term developing story has taken on a new meaning since November 2019. At that time, many Americans read news stories about COVID-19, not thinking it would impact their lives, but come March 2020, nearly every American’s lives were turned upside down.
As scientists learn about coronavirus, as medical professionals deal with its aftermath, as people clamour to keep their jobs, students and teachers grapple with the reality that they cannot meet face-to-face, but rather have to figure out how to end a school year in ways that no one could have foreseen in November 2019.
When ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune surveyed the state’s 38 regional offices of education to e-learning plans approved before the pandemic forced buildings to close, they found that 670 of Illinois’ 852 public school districts and special education cooperatives; roughly one in four, or about 200, had plans approved before March 17.
E-learning plans, designed for no more than five days of instruction within a calendar school year, are different from the remote learning plans that school districts have been advised to use to finish the 2019-20 school year.
Just as the story of developing remote learning plans has been told, we believe that it is also important to record history from a variety of sources and perspectives. There is no doubt that within two or three weeks, education, as many Americans knew it, was turned upside down. There is also speculation that in the coming months and years, the COVID-19 pandemic may open the doors for new avenues of educating children.
Over the next three days, we will provide perspectives on what remote learning looks like at this point in the story from teachers, students and parents. We reached out to a variety of people all over East Central Illinois and some in other states. We provided anonymity to those who responded so that people would feel like they could be honest.
The Mahomet Daily and SJO Daily team will continue to provide a platform for different perspectives to be shared as the education story unfolds. This story may be in its infancy, and we understand there is much more to be understood.
By FRED KRONER
The learning curve has been heightened for students in all grade levels.
Their classroom might now be the kitchen table, the living room or their bedroom. The school day doesn’t necessarily begin during the 8 o’clock hour each morning and it doesn’t end during the 3 o’clock hour in the afternoon.
Remote learning has become a reality for students from kindergarten through college due to the world-wide COVID19 pandemic.
Staff from the Mahomet Daily and the SJO Daily interviewed 10 students – five boys and five girls – ranging from a third-grader to high school seniors, for their thoughts and impressions on what school life has been like during the past six weeks.
To promote open responses, they were granted anonymity for this story.
As might be expected, they have a mixed range of feelings on the subject.
Two seniors give the overall experience a thumbs up.
“Remote learning has gone great because teachers have done a wonderful job helping us smoothly transition to online work,” a female student from Mahomet-Seymour said. “Without their hard work and creative ideas, remote learning would not be possible.
“I am so thankful for my amazing teachers. They have been absolute rock stars.”
A male student, who is a senior at St. Joseph-Ogden, offered this view: “I think that our teachers and faculty have done a pretty good job in trying to transition into online learning.
“This is a first for pretty much everyone, so to be able to act in a small amount of time, they have done a fine job. I think they have the best intentions for the students during this time.”
Not all share the positive opinion, including a junior at Villa Grove.
“Honestly I don’t think it’s going well,” he said. “I know I have trouble getting my work done and my friends are the same way, especially the seniors, who feel like they basically already graduated.”
A sixth-grade boy at Mahomet-Seymour is also frustrated, saying the setup is, “Not good because we are not learning anything and all the teachers and staff are not organized.
“They have provided us with e-learning opportunities, but have yet to provide paper materials.”
He said it doesn’t take him long to finish his work.
“A typical school day takes about 30 to 40 minutes,” he added.
The problem, said a junior at Heritage, is not feeling a part of things.
“I don’t feel I am getting as much out of it because I do not get one-on-one time, no discussion from other students,” she said. “I would give remote learning a 5 of 10 because of not having the classroom environment.”
One aspect that students appreciate is the flexibility in when to schedule their study time.
“My sleep schedule has changed tremendously to where I sleep late in the day and stay up later than usual,” the SJ-O senior said. “I usually do my schoolwork when I wake up, which is around 11 or noon, unless I have a meeting with my teachers at 9.
“I typically am assigned around an hour or two of homework every day that I usually do later at night.”
One of Mahomet-Seymour’s senior respondents also prefers a late start.
“My typical school day is very different for me now,” she said. “I don’t usually start my online classes ‘til about 11:30 or 12. Then I will just sit at my dinner room table and work on my classes until I have everything completed.”
Some students are diligent about their classes and devote a lot of their day to schoolwork.
“My typical school day involves more hours of work than I would actually do in homework at night (previously),” said the Heritage senior. “I normally spend about five to six hours working on my assignments each day.”
One of the M-S seniors follows a similar path.
“It usually takes me a few hours to get everything done, mostly because my math class and my medical careers class take a lot of time to complete,” she said. “I would say I spend a good four hours or so doing my online classes.”
She has successfully avoided the temptation to blow things off.
“I am participating in the assignments my teachers are providing because I think it is important to keep learning,” she said. “As a senior, I know it can be very challenging to do the assignments because it is upsetting that we don’t get to finish our last year of high school with our friends and teachers.
“A lot of us feel like a lot got taken away from us and it is hard for us to complete this work, but for me I don’t want any incompletes on my transcript.”
For an eighth-grader at M-S, the preference is to start into school work as early as possible.
“I first do my work when I wake up,” he said. “It usually takes me about an hour to complete, and then I move on to some other activities throughout the day.
“I go to a quiet place, turn off my phone, and don’t do anything until my schoolwork is done.”
The nice part, according to a sophomore at Mahomet-Seymour, is that the work doesn’t need to be done during a particular time period.
“I have definitely been trying to do all my assignments for all my classes, although sometimes I turn them in a little bit late,” she said. “This typically takes me two hours on and off throughout the day.
“I honestly think that in most of my classes I am getting just as much out of it as I would in the classroom, but there are definitely classes that I think that I would benefit from more if I was sitting and hearing a class discussion.”
The SJ-O senior recognizes that it’s to his benefit to keep up with what is being taught.
“Personally, I do participate in the activities and assignments that are provided to me because I feel that I need to keep school in my life on a daily basis in order to stay prepared for college next year,” he said. “However, I know many of my friends do not do all of the homework that they are provided with because they know it will not affect their grades.”
The home environment is not always conducive to studying.
“It can be hard to motivate myself,” the M-S sophomore said, “but it’s definitely nice to go to bed each night knowing that the day had a purpose.”
An eighth-grader at M-S said it has been difficult, but he has stayed on task.
“While sometimes I wish I did not have to do it, I have never considered skipping an option,” he said.
Starting the school day with a favorite subject gets a third-grade girl at M-S ready to go.
“I love social studies, so in the morning I’m excited to do it,” the student said. “Math and reading are OK, but not the best.”
She has found a consistency in the amount of time needed each day.
“Two hours on social studies, reading for 20 minutes, with the assignment, sometimes an hour, math takes about 30 minutes and watching an educational documentary for about an hour,” she said.
A junior high student at M-S has ready-made desire already provided, saying, “It is very easy to motivate myself because my family has me finish all of my homework and chores before I can get on video games, which is good because that really helps me motivate myself.”
The problem, for some, is that there are too many distractions.
“It is definitely harder when I am at home because I have a lot more materials that will distract me,” the SJ-O senior said. “It definitely takes a lot more focus and self-control to make sure that I am completing the work that I need to.
“I tend to find myself procrastinating more in online learning than I typically did in school because in school we had a lot of time to work on our homework and material without being distracted.”
Isolating herself is a strategy used by the M-S sophomore.
“When I sit down to do my work, I usually try to do it not surrounded by people because it can be overwhelming to try to focus when others are around all the time,” she said.
At times, corralling the discipline needed to keep up while at home is tough.
“I find it difficult to avoid distractions at home,” a senior at M-S said. “I don’t have a very long attention span, so I can’t just sit down and go through all my classes without taking a break or getting on snapchat, tiktok, Instagram or any music app.
“I do listen to music while working because that sometimes helps me stay focused and get as much work done as I can. I won’t lie, though, sometimes with playing music, I end up taking a small dance break every now and then.”
Because of what is ahead, motivation is not an issue for another M-S senior.
“It is not very hard to motivate myself because I still have AP tests to focus on and prepare for,” she said. “I have also developed a work ethic where I strive to always do my best.
“For AP classes, it is review because AP changed the format of the test so that it would only cover the material learned up until March, so we are now preparing for these exams. In my other classes, we are learning new material.”
Several students said the time they commit to school work has greatly decreased.
“I am trying to get all my activities done but I have fallen behind because my teachers have assigned a bunch of homework and I get bored and lose focus when I’m at home,” the Villa Grove junior said.
“I usually sit down and try to do a few assignments a day from each class. I work for around an hour a day.”
Some students are not only learning, but also assisting a sibling.
“My mom has to go to work every other day,” said one of the M-S seniors, “so it is a challenge for her to be a huge role in this process for me.
“When she is home, she helps my younger sister and makes sure she gets her work done. When my mom isn’t home, it’s my responsibility to get my work done and help my sister get hers done as well.
“She’s only in sixth-grade and this change has been challenging for her because she’s not as used to working on the chromebook as I am.”
Parents can do more than supply encouragement.
“My dad helps me if I have a question with science or math, but my mom will help me if I have a question in history or English,” a junior high student at M-S said.
Family serves as a support group to keep their students on track.
“We made a schedule and my mom checks that I did my work,” a third-grader at M-S said. “My dad and grandma have helped me with math.”
For a senior at M-S, her parents are role models.
“They provide me with support, motivation and positivity, and I strive to mirror their incredible work ethic,” she said.
Family expectations help some students stay motivated.
“My parents have helped me a lot in this transition because they have also had to transition in their jobs,” the SJ-O senior said. “They hold me responsible for my schoolwork and expect me to do well in school despite the obstacles that I may face during this pandemic.”
Given a choice, there are students who prefer the structure of the classroom to learn as opposed to the comforts of home.
“I personally believe that I would be better off back in school because it’s easier to ask questions and to get help from teachers and my peers,” a senior at M-S said.
Villa Grove’s junior agrees.
“I definitely learned better from being in a classroom where I have nothing else to do but focus,” he said. “At home, I can get sidetracked.”
The chance to mingle and see friends during the day is an advantage that the SJ-O senior sees.
“Not being able to see your friends and teachers in person is very deflating and discouraging towards school,” he said. “I definitely don’t feel as if I am getting as much out of online class than I am with regular school.
“Having the opportunity to discuss a variety of things with teachers and students is one of the biggest ways students learn in school.”
When they have questions during their at-home learning sessions, students – for the most part – have found their teachers accessible.
“My teachers have been available every time I have needed them,” an eighth-grade boy at M-S said.
At SJ-O, a senior said the teachers help promote the process.
“For most of my classes I have at least one meeting with my teachers every week and they talk with the students,” he said. “Most of the teachers will set out what to expect for the rest of the week and will also go over what we did the previous week.
“The teachers will answer questions if needed.”
Reaching the teachers is not the challenge, according to a Heritage senior.
“We don’t have any set times, but we are able to email our teachers whenever we need help,” she said. “I think they answer within a reasonable time frame.
“It is harder to discuss the class and questions over email rather than in person.”
A senior at M-S said teachers have put forth an effort to not only provide instruction but also feedback.
“Some of my teachers host a live Google Meet during the time when we would regularly have their class, while others post a daily ‘lecture’ video on Google Classroom,” she said.
For some, the online format creates a less judgmental environment.
“If anything, it is better because you can ask a teacher a question through a private post on Google classroom instead of posting it on the entire classroom page,” he said. “I personally like that better because everyone wouldn’t be saying on the website, ‘are you serious, you should know this.’”
SJ-O’s senior likes the plan his school has in place.
“Most teachers will set specific times for meetings, as well as setting specific times that they will be reading and responding to questions based off Google classroom,” he said. “They typically answer the questions promptly.”
Seeing and interacting with teachers was something students found they had taken for granted. With that not being possible now, some find what they are missing.
“I don’t have much daily interaction with any of my teachers besides them sending a reminder text out to explain what we need to complete for the day,” a senior at M-S said. “I have sent a few emails to teachers asking for help and just to say hello because I do miss my teachers a lot and I have a good relationship with them.”
One lesson has been vividly illustrated for the M-S sophomore.
“I think that Covid-19 has taught students everywhere to value school as a whole,” she said.
Students have the option of adding activities suggested by teachers. One sixth-grader at M-S has chosen not to be involved.
“I am not participating in activities because I feel they are not agitational or needed,” he said.
Another junior high student at M-S said the technology doesn’t always allow for complete immersion.
“The assignments that my teachers give me I always do, but the extra assignments that are just activities, I will do if I can,” he said. “That saying, usually they are in emails sent to my school email, but they have set it up so that your student emails cannot receive anything from anyone, including the teachers.”
If there are deficiencies in the system – which was implemented in a matter of days in most districts – then it’s not the teachers who are to blame, but the circumstances, according to an eighth-grader at M-S.
“I feel that teachers have done the best that they can be doing, but sometimes this process doesn’t feel like learning,” he said.
What the students are studying is a mixture of review combined with new material.
“We started off learning review the first week, but now we’re learning new material,” the Villa Grove junior said.
“At this point, most of my classes have just been reviewing or finishing up what we were just learning before we had this crazy sheltering,” a sophomore at M-S said. “There are classes that have new material, which have been nice.”
At SJ-O, it has been full speed ahead.
“I am learning new material for each class,” a Spartan senior said. “We have been going into different chapters and lessons for each class.”
Finishing the school year with remote learning is one thing. Starting a year in that manner would be a totally different experience.
“I would not even want to imagine what it would be like to learn and study from home from the start of the school year,” a senior at M-S said. “I think that there would be way more requirements through this process and more teachers would want to do Zoom calls or any other type of conference call with the class.”
For the Villa Grove junior, he said he would be on board.
“This might sound crazy,” he said, “but I think I would be more motivated to get my homework done at the beginning of the year instead of now because I feel like it’s summer break right now.”
A Heritage senior said the practical side of starting a school year with at-home learning makes the idea tough to even visualize.
“It would be much harder to have to start a school year off, with only having the knowledge over the internet,” she said. “It would be all new information rather than learning it all year.”
A senior at M-S said the comparisons between the two are as different as football is from basketball.
“I think this would be more difficult because not only would we have all-new material, but we would also have new teachers, classmates and class syllabuses and routines to accustom ourselves to from home,” she said. “On the contrary, at the end of the year, we already have a good understanding in terms of our goals in the class.”
For at-home education to continue in the fall, however, a sophomore at M-S believes changes would need to be implemented.
“I think this online learning would be a lot more difficult had it been at the start of the year rather than the end of the year,” she said. “If it was the start of the year, then the material would have to all be new instead of just review.
“Also, questions would be hard to answer with new topics constantly.”
SJ-O’s senior is glad he won’t have to experience that, at least not at the high school level.
“I honestly don’t know how long I could last if this was from the beginning of the school year,” he said. “Not being able to see your friends and teachers for almost an entire year would be very saddening.
“Many people are almost at their limit for online schooling right now, so I couldn’t imagine the stress and other emotions that my friends and I would be feeling.”
The M-S sophomore is thankful that she is not a senior this year.
“I know a lot of people around me are struggling with the inability to finish out this school year and getting to do their extracurricular activities,” she said. “My heart goes out to the seniors who aren’t able to savor the last few moments of their high school years.
“I couldn’t imagine having to give up the best moments of high school with the possibility of never getting to walk across the stage and celebrate the progress made through the past four years of their life.”
One M-S senior is grateful that administrators have rescheduled graduation 2020 (tentatively set for July 10).
“I really appreciate them having graduation postponed instead of canceled because that is a huge milestone for us seniors and I think through this whole thing we deserve to possibly get the chance to walk across the stage with our friends and peers before we all go off our separate ways,” she said. “I know it means a lot to me and I’m super thankful that we can possibly still get that moment every senior in high school looks forward to.”
Like many stressful and unexpected situations, a Heritage senior expects this to be a life moment that the students involved will remember and reflect on years from now.
“Although this is hard for many students everywhere, we will get through it,” she said. “For the seniors, I know this is not how you wanted your senior year to end because I surely didn’t want this either, but make the most of every day.
“Just think about the stories we get to tell about all of this when we grow up.”
