Hello again to online learning world...of fun or stress?

Vacation is really over, no more movie marathon and drama series that made me sleep so late. Our classes will start this Monday. Hello once again to the new normal, online learning.

The new normal, distance learning. It has been a while since the Department of Education announced that classes will resume, but only through online classes or by modular. Philippines among five countries yet to reopen schools. News states that there are few selected schools, around 120 in low risk areas that has been granted permission to pilot face to face classes. It is for kinder to grade three. However, it is yet to happen since some committees opposes to this idea. There are also universities that holds limited face to face classes as it is needed for their course, they are for those who took Medical Technology as their course.

We have different stance and opinions in this new normal, some may feel angered from their own experience in distance learning, some may feel just fine with this new adjustment. But let's be real, how was it so far? From a student's point of view, it really is a struggle. At this point, I consider myself as privileged, however, I still have struggles in online classes. What more for those students that isn't as privileged as me? Having an unstable internet connection is not a problem for me, same goes with doing task, however, sometimes they are too many to handle that you do not know what you should do first. Also, when it comes to learning. There's only a limited time to listen to the teachers, and to tell you, I do not understand lessons in just a limited explanation, that is why it was kind of hard for me to catch up. Sometimes, my mind just doesn't work at all, even watching the same lesson in YouTube doesn't help much at all. Teachers struggles with it too, cause they have their own deadlines as well so explaining the lesson twice or more than, that would take much of their time.

We have synchronous and asynchronous classes too, so there really isn't much time to ask help for teachers, you just have to do it yourself. Also, procrastination, this is pretty common for everyone, everyone actually experienced this. So there are times you have to stay up all night or pull an all nighter so you could finish your tasks, this might be a problem we should deal with ourselves but it is pretty inevitable. For those unprivileged students, it is much harder for them. I have classmates who doesn't have a good and stable internet connection so most of the time, they missed the discussion. There are times when they cannot understand what the teacher is saying because of their slow internet, also they cannot participate in the recitations, so I really sympathize with them.

A friend of mine worries about her grades most of the time, she really struggled a lot with her net provider. Another thing that I've witnessed, I've seen students asking for help through online if they could borrow this much load so they'll be able to attend classes. It was such a hard sight to see, because I've also seen students failed classes because they weren't able to attend/answer their lessons. For what reasons? House work, like taking care of their siblings because their parents aren't there. There's a lot more than that actually, mental health problems, family problems, financial problems, working students, etc.

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

It has been a year, but some of us still aren't used with the sudden change. However, in this school year 2021-2022, I hope everyone to have a good year even though it is still quite a struggle. Distance learning is hard but with a bit of determination, we will be able to make progress and move forward.

*Lead image and all other images are from Unsplash...

Message of gratitude:

First off, thank you so much dearest friends for having sometime to drop by and read my articles in here. Also, many thanks to @Ling01 for the sponsorship, really appreciated your kindness. And to all my very generous sponsors thank you so much for the support and inspiration.