Online Learning

By Charlotte Farrell - Wed. Mar. 3, 2021

In a previous Wolf Press article, “Online Learning” by Charlotte Farrell (Dec.18, 2020), remote learning and how MS 447 was coping was covered. In this article, similar topics will be covered. Though the student body has been getting used to remote learning, there are still many difficulties and frustrations that’ll never go away. Students and teachers alike, however, are still very much feeling stressed. Students may have already adjusted to most of online learning, but there are some things that will never go away, such as zoom, losing internet, and bad communication. There’s also the recurring problem of distractions in online learning. Because students are on our devices so much, students can easily get distracted and not pay attention to the lessons. Most children can get away with things without a teacher watching over their shoulder. There are many things on the internet that people can get distracted by, and thus students are not as focused on learning as students were in physical school. Online learning can still be very stressful even though students are pretty much used to it by now. Physical learning forced us to stay focused and on task since students were there. Now, onto covering some of the topics mentioned before:

Zoom - Teachers have begun to get kinder about students complaining of excessive zoom meetings, though zoom meetings are still very much occurring. Some students prefer asynchronous learning, where they can work at their own pace and not have to sit at a meeting listening to stuff that could have just as easily read. 

“It gives me more flexibility to my day and I can take breaks when I need them and I don’t have to listen to teachers repeat the same things that I understand over and over.” says 8th grader Maggie Handelman. 

“I like asynchronous learning better because I can do my school work at my own pace and I have more freedom.” 8th grader Delaney Maniago adds. However, some feel that zoom meetings can be helpful at times. 

“I think that zoom meetings can be good since you can private chat with a teacher and get one on one help anytime throughout the lesson. This is also good for kids who might prefer some anonymity.” says 8th grader Ivy Bloomfield. It seems that though zoom meetings can be timesome, time consuming and annoying most of the time, they can also be helpful and useful. 

So in the end, it isn’t “NO MORE ZOOM” or “I LUV ZOOM” (though it’s doubtful anybody would ever say that). It should be a nice equal, though most students would prefer more to the side of asynchronous learning.

Losing Internet - This happens to almost everyone, teachers and students alike. Getting kicked out of zooms, not being able to attend zooms, not being able to access the lesson, not getting work done on time, ohhhhh the stress. It’s not something you can just fix with a snap of your fingers. Most people are still working from home and thus everybody in the household would probably be on a device. This is not fun for anyone, since nobody wants to share their internet these days. Alas, this cannot be helped. Here are a few examples of losing the internet and it’s problems: 

“Once I got kicked off a zoom call and couldn’t rejoin since my internet went totally out, so I was worried that I would miss something important and get a bad grade or not understand something.” says 8th grader Zoe Schotland. 

“I once joined a zoom meet on time but right as I joined my internet lagged and I couldn’t unmute or turn my camera on or type in the chat, I was going in and out of the zoom. Since I couldn’t do anything the teachers thought I was ignoring them and it was so bad.” says 8th grader Nora Spingarn. Though students cannot control the internet, it is still very much irritable when losing it.

Bad Communication= This is a huge problem. Lack of communication is probably one of the worst things about online school. When students are struggling with something in class and try to email their teachers, they might not get a response until days later, and in that time period they’ve already struggled with plenty of lessons. Before, when 8th grader Ivy Bloomfield mentioned that when in zoom, you get one-on-one time with the teacher, it means that when you can see the teacher actually there, it’s much easier to communicate. However, many kids still contact their teachers heavily through emails. While teachers are presumably very busy with making lessons and grading work, they should be able to communicate with students who require their help. This is not true for all teachers, many do reply, but there is a margin that does not, and that can heavily affect the students' lesson understanding. 

“In our new virtual world, there are so many things that demand a teacher's attention during the day. Between grading, lesson planning, and facilitating three or more live Zoom calls, it is challenging to respond to emails in a timely manner.” says 8th grade science teacher Ms. Martin. 

“Nowadays email is one of the only ways we can talk to our teachers and when teachers don’t respond to emails it’s really hard to get things done. If I email my teacher a question that never gets answered, I can’t fully understand my assignment.” says a student 8th grader Maggie Handleman. Communication is definitely something that needs to be fixed for online learning to be effective and helpful towards the student body.

On the whole, online learning has a lot of problems, some solvable, some unsolvable. So students and teachers alike need to work to fix these problems so that learning can be just as effective as physical learning was. There is no saying when students might return to blended school, but when they do, they might feel a lot more comfortable to be somewhere- anywhere -near normal.

8th Graders High School Admissions

by Charlotte Farrell

Eighth grade is the year we get ready for our high school admissions process. It is very stressful and important indeed, remotely or not. There are plenty of high schools in NYC to list, all the more stress to pick which ones. Students usually put 12 high schools down on their list, since you don’t always get into your first choice, some don’t even get into their top three. It’s always good to have a variety of schools to list down. Each school is unique and somewhat different, but that doesn’t make it easier at all, since one school might be really strong in arts but not so much in academics, and the other the opposite. Really, you should think of what high school you feel like you would prosper best in. However, these high schools are by no means easy to get into, many requiring things such as auditions (eek!), tests (yuck!) and/or essays. Yeah, not fun at all. And don’t get me started with SHSAT schools. The SHSAT test itself is covered in another article, written by Maisie Caroll, but I will mention that in my opinion it’s a god awful test that’s just plain mean. But it’s all for getting a good education, which is something everyone should have. Some good/popular high schools in NYC to choose from would be: Beacon, Bard Queens, Bard Manhattan, Murrow, Millenium, Frank Sinatra, LaGuardia (whole other admission process though), Midwood and literally all SHSAT schools.

And that’s not even close to all the good ones. There are seriously too many. I suggest you look at a wide variety, though I’m probably just spilling information that most 8th graders already know by now. High school is a big, stressful topic for all 8th graders, some torn between schools, some disliking all schools, some liking all schools. No decision is easy. As an 8th grader myself I can tell you that I’m very nervous about high schools and which ones I could prosper in, but honestly, I have a lot of time to think about it. That’s good and bad, because if I have a lot of time, I’ll just keep changing my list, and if I have no time at all, I’ll regret what I put on my list. Perhaps I’m more stressed about high schools than the students I’m writing to.

What I like to do is think about opening my letter, saying “You got into ____”, and thinking about how I would feel, how I would react. It makes me realize what schools I’d actually be really happy about getting into. I also think about what it would be like to walk in the school, make it my own community and imagine how I would be there. This is a great way to narrow down my options and know which schools I’d really like to be. Though this is all a remote process, and it is harder to imagine actually being in the school, I still do try in order to make the process less hard on me. 

School websites can be helpful (depending on how much information they have), or you can contact people who are already in those schools (such as siblings, or friends of siblings) and ask them. High school open houses can be super boring, but you’ll know when you’re interested. It’s easy to get lost in the world of high schools but I’m sure you’ll get into a great high school, and hopefully you’ll enjoy it. And if you don’t, there’s always college! (which is even bigger, and way way way more stressful)