Online Schooling by Lucas Rendina

On Monday, March 30th, Sparta started their third week of online schooling, along with almost everyone else across the country. Before this began and everything regarding the idea were just rumors, no one really took it that seriously. Everyone assumed that, because no one had any idea what to do with online schooling, nothing would get done. I had this mindset too, and when I first heard that school was closing for 2 weeks, I was looking forward to sleeping in and coasting through my classes. However, things aren’t stopping, and they are going to have to keep getting harder. The country, along with the world, is nowhere near a solution to the coronavirus pandemic, and school can’t reopen until they get a handle on the situation. This means that for all of marking period 4, school could become video calls to learn new units and tests almost all being open ended. Personally, I’m worried this will happen to the AP tests, which now that they are online, will inevitably have to be much harder. The actual education part of online schooling was what I thought would be the hardest part, but it has been working out pretty well. Teachers are transitioning into recording lessons and having video calls that come very close to simulating an actual classroom. While this is good, it is only a temporary fix. Not returning to school this year is seeming like more of a possibility each day, and we don’t know how it will impact finals. Like everyone else, I’m hoping they get cancelled, but if they end up being online like the AP tests, they will probably have little to no multiple choice. Looking even further into the future, going into next year with continued online schooling could alter the curriculum and change life for college students. If all college courses become online classes, many will question why they are paying so much for them. However, we have a lot of time before this could happen and it hopefully won't. Online schooling has gone surprisingly well, considering how much we rushed into it, but I'm hoping it doesn't last too much longer.