Should Green Bay East Go Virtual? No

By Jackson Heller

Let’s be honest. Everyone loves a day off from school. I mean, it’s only human nature. It’s that exhilarating feeling when your parents knock on your door and let you know that there’s too much snow on the ground and school is canceled has still gone unmatched throughout all 18 years of my life. The re-cancellation of school, however, is a step too far.

The bottom line is that online school is no longer a new frontier. High schools, colleges, and other organizations have been holding in-person meetings for years now. It’s simply not that foreign of a technology anymore. Sure, teachers still may forget to share their screen or unmute themselves while giving a 30 minute lecture away from the keyboard, but we as students have been given the invaluable gift of experience.

As long as we’re on the topic of honesty, I’d like to bring up a point that I think most of my fellow students would agree with. Nobody sees online school as an extension of the classroom, anymore. It is simply a day off to most. Heck, even me. When we got school off in the days leading up to the winter break I simply saw it as an extra three days of vacation.

In the days that COVID-19 has continued to spike, I am seeing a sentiment become more and more common: “I wouldn’t mind if we had a day or two off of school.” This statement, while ringing true for almost all of us, also illustrates the main problem with moving school to an online setting. We as a student body simply don’t take it seriously enough for it to function in a long term sort of setting.

Successful online schooling is built on a foundation of the students, unlike in-person schooling where it’s built upon the teachers. A student can mute their mic and turn off their camera and it’s like they’re not even there, and the teacher can do nothing about it. It’s completely on us as students to step up, be responsible and participate.

And I am in no way exempt to this issue. I don’t turn my camera on for most classes. I’d consider myself an active student in person, but online I find myself shrinking behind my profile picture more and more often. It’s a pity, because I feel the sentiment is shared between the students and the teachers as well. Every teacher I’ve spoken to hates not being able to interact with their students in person and have that educational connection that is lacking online.

This doesn’t come without numerical data, either. Grades have plummeted since the introduction of online school. Even the most elite colleges in the nation are going test exempt to combat standardized test induced stress and lower test scores. If you were to look at my transcript, you’d know exactly which years I was online in a heartbeat.

To be general, online school is not great. It relies far too much on a group of students who have honestly just had enough, and then projects that lack of energy onto struggling teachers. As a last resort, it works fine. Some school is better than no school. But as long as we are able to take initiative and practice safe health measures, we should fight to keep numbers down and stay in schools. It’s simply the best for everyone.