As the coronavirus spreads rapidly, many school districts have taken action to continue educating their students and move to more online means of teaching. Teachers at YLHS have been working hard to provide a seamless transition to homeschooling. While teachers may be doing their part, is it safe to say that students are disciplining themselves?

As a student who has never experienced school from home, Joyce Lin (10) says “I definitely felt a little overwhelmed at first just because it was all at once. But then I realized that most of the work we do in school is already online, so the transition was not as hard as I expected.” Most students seem to have had a bearable transition as many teachers at YLHS are working hard to make sure each student has what he/she needs to continue learning.

Since learning from home can be difficult without regular lectures like what we are used to, teachers look for new ways to reach their students and continue their curriculum. Some methods include posting assignments on google classroom, sharing videos of their lectures, and using chat rooms like zoom. Zoom is a common tool used by many teachers as it allows students and teachers to interact similar to a regular classroom environment. 

A major conflict that all students may be facing is staying diligent and keeping up with school work. A new environment that is full of distractions and has no need to wake up so early can be difficult to stay productive in. However, teachers have found ways to combat these tendencies. For example, live interactions, like zoom, are scheduled at specific times which forces students to get out of bed and to their workspaces. Teachers also make it impossible to be lazy by setting deadlines for submitting online work. Despite these actions, there are some things that students can get away with being lazy. With little to no tests and quizzes, students have nothing to push them to study.

AP classes may even be effected more than non-AP classes as the college board recently announced that there will be changes made to how the AP exams are going to be done. The AP exams will now only cover what has been taught in most schools until this point in time. This pushes teachers to transition their students to “review mode” as new material will not be needed for the exam. 

Overall, the transition from a regular schooling system to an online system has been successful. The hard work of teachers is not overlooked as they clearly push to keep their students learning. The coronavirus has impacted many people, but while students and teachers continue to work hard, we are hopeful that learning will not stop. Remember to stay productive and safe!