Remote learning didn’t work…for me

Everyone knows the arduous journey the past year has been in regards to the pandemic and learning. For myself and many of my peers, it’s an understatement to say that remote learning has been difficult. 

It’s been nearly impossible. 

Coming out of winter break, I made the decision to go fully remote. This meant I wouldn’t go into the school building anymore, and instead I’d take all of my classes online from home. At the time, COVID cases were spiking, and I thought it best for my family’s safety that I stay home. 

However, in the past two months of remote learning, I noticed my work ethic and motivation diminish to almost nothing. There was something about waking up everyday and sitting at my computer for 16 hours that made me lose all will to continue my academic growth. 

For starters, working from home almost feels as though I’m not working toward anything. I still want to pass all of my classes in order to get into college, but my body just feels like it’s in ‘home mode,” causing me to spend the entire day watching TV or playing video games. 

After making the switch to full-remote, a big thing for me was that I had no schedule. Every day felt the same, no matter what day of the week it was. 

Each day, my school work would pile up, yet I convinced myself I’d have time to do it tomorrow. Or the next day. Eventually, it got  to a point where I became so distraught with the work piling up that I asked myself: Is there even a reason to do work at all at this point? 

I knew I couldn’t continue in te full-remote model.

So I decided to return to school, but instead of following the hybrid model, I returned back to school full-time. For me, it wasn’t worth it to stay at home all day as a shell of myself anymore. I wanted to take control of my life and become the person I want to be. 

My only issue, however, is still the concern of safety. Choosing between safety and sanity is one of our greatest dilemmas at this current time. Luckily, according to President Biden’s executive order, most educators should be getting the COVID vaccine by the end of this month. 

This isn’t the way learning is meant to be. From my own trials and errors, I believe it is time to push past this botched way of learning and get back into the classroom.