Time is fake, and school is optional. That’s the mentality most students are struggling with at this moment.
My teachers took a long time to get accustomed to Zoom and set up a schedule. For the first couple of weeks after social distancing started, each Zoom was only about fifteen minutes long, and they were at different times each week.
Of course it would be confusing. It’s understandable because this COVID-19 situation is something that has never happened before, but it seems that the disorganization at the beginning has set up a trap for students.
Now, if a student skips Zoom meetings, it doesn’t matter much. I personally feel like teachers are assuming that students most likely won’t come. They post notes on classroom for what they covered anyway, so why should we listen to the teacher talk about something that we can learn from the notes on our own?
For a solid month, every time I would attend a Spanish Zoom meeting, there were never more than 8 people, even though the Zoom meeting would be for the two Spanish classes combined. Often, there were four or less people.
This was disappointing, to say the least. I felt sorry for the teachers, because I would also be frustrated if I set up a lesson and barely anyone cared enough about my class to learn about the material.
At least, currently, all teachers more or less have a schedule they follow for meetings. In some ways, it is satisfying to see a whole classroom (thirty to forty people) in the meeting, though of course, like always, not everyone participates.
Learning this way is comfortable. It’s easy. There are barely any rules, and you can make yourself practically invisible by turning off the camera and mic.
This isn’t only bad for the teachers. It’s bad for the students as well.
In Zoom meetings, teachers can’t see whether or not you are on your phone. They can’t monitor if you are playing games, talking with your friends, or listening to music while they are teaching if you turn off your camera.
So what will happen when students who are used to this treatment go back to school?
Those students will not be able to focus for an hour or more for each period, sitting still and quietly taking notes when they have been texting their friends and scrolling through social media during lessons for months.
This is a time bad habits will latch onto students. It is our responsibility, as students, to make sure that they don’t take over.
I see my friends and other classmates complaining that they would like to go back to school to see their friends, and I feel the same way. But after months of being comfortably learning at our own pace at home, my prediction is that the student population will be sharply divided.
Those who control their habits, and those who let their habits control them.
