Hybrid 2.0 - Google Meet Mayhem or Magnificence?
By Olivia LoPresti ('22) and Jessica Singh ('22)
Recently, North Rockland transitioned from its initial hybrid model to hybrid 2.0, enabling in-person students to attend school more often and those online to tune in live to the classroom.
Jamie Kapusinsky (‘21) has been attending school on the hybrid model for the entire school year. She chose this model for its educational and social advantages. She says that she wants to “see [her] friends and make more memories before [they] part ways.” Kapusinsky also says that being home can become draining, and “your brain eventually goes into autopilot day after day.” However, the hybrid model provides “new and unexpected situations” that remind her what school is supposed to be like. She says that communicating with teachers and peers in the classroom allows you to “hear different perspectives and bounce your ideas off of each other.”
However, Kapusinsky says that it is not all positive, and days are, at times, frustrating. She admits that students have become increasingly exhausted and lack motivation; school feels constraining and “becomes a fight with productivity.” She also observes that the hybrid 2.0 can be more difficult for teachers, as they now “must split their attention between the kids in school and those at home, making the lessons less personal and interesting.”
“After seeing what seniors in all of our past years have been able to experience and building up excitement for our turn, it's hard not to feel cheated,” Kapusinsky said.
Nevertheless, she is grateful to experience some semblance of normalcy and realizes that as a senior. She can only make the best of the situation.
“Your brain eventually goes into autopilot day after day since there is nothing new to work on, experience, or enjoy.”
- Jamie Kapusinsky
Briana Martinez (‘22), who recently switched from the hybrid model to the remote model, says she “prefers the remote learning model as opposed to the hybrid model.”
She switched to the fully remote model to lessen the risk of exposure for her grandparents, who now live with her. Martinez feels that she can manage her time better at home and finds herself able to “communicate with [her] teachers and ask questions as efficiently as in person.” One of the only drawbacks she sees is not having “an appropriate workspace at home” and “distractions at home,” but, for her, it is only a minor issue. Martinez says, “Either way of learning during this pandemic hasn’t really been successful.”
She explains how, as a junior, while online learning has taken off pressure associated with junior year, she doesn’t “feel prepared to make the decisions [she] needs to make when it comes to college.” Finally, she adds that “everything is just confusing at this point in time, and [her] junior year hasn’t been very enjoyable.”
Kaelin O’Connor (‘22), as a student who has been remote the entire school year, has experienced all of the changes from the original hybrid model to hybrid 2.0 through the screen. To avoid exposure to the virus, O’Connor chose to remain home, and she finds that hybrid 2.0 has “helped bridge the gap between in-school and remote learning” by remedying challenges in the “old hybrid model [that] have been fixed in hybrid 2.0.” O’Connor believes that the frequency of the Google Meets helps her feel “in the classroom a little bit more than before.” However, she says that there are still issues attending school remotely, especially “internet issues” that make it much “more difficult to learn.”
Sophomore Richard Lin (‘23) is also a remote student who shares a similar experience. Like O’Connor, he says that “hybrid 2.0 has helped make the gap closer between in-school and remote learning.”
“In the old hybrid model, there [wasn’t] enough teacher and student interaction,” Lin says.
His experience greatly improved due to an increased frequency of iLearning days in hybrid 2.0, yet there are still troubling aspects to the new hybrid model. He says that the “work ethic at home is much lower than if you’re in school” and, similarly to Kapusinsky’s statement, it becomes an “internal battle” on whether to do the work or not. Like many during this time, he misses the social interaction of in-person school. Lin concludes, stating that while the pandemic “hinders people’s learning abilities,” being a sophomore or junior seems less inconvenient, as “freshman don’t get the first-year experience in school” and “seniors are missing the best year” of their high school experience.