Ariel Clark

With Kim Reynold’s decision to officially close down schools for the rest of the academic school year, schools were given the option on how they wanted to proceed with their learning services.  They could either offer “voluntary educational enrichment opportunities” or “required educational services.”  Some even chose to combine the two methods.   Our school, going under the guideline of voluntary education, has seen a drastic decrease in student performance. 

This system of online education requires educators to find a way to display their work that best suits them.  Several departments, such as math and history, have come together to make a shared google document for students to find their class’s work on.  Other departments, like english and chemistry, have decided to host regular zoom meetings in order to teach students information face to face.  While none of these classes can legally grade any of the optional work, the option is there for students to take the initiative and further their education. However, the school has been seeing a major decline in student activity.

Personally, I find the lack of grading to be the main issue students are facing.  While it’s true that most students have a job or other life concerns that don’t allow them to always attend online classes; students don’t have an innate desire to actively seek out additional work, especially work that yields no benefit outside of their own educational growth.  With no strong sense of consistency in how teacher’s run their classes, it’s even harder for students who suffer from depression or other mental illnesses to find the motivation required to actively seek out each individual class’s plans. Perhaps if the system smooths itself out more with time, and more options become available along with a clear motive, we’ll be able to see a spike in student activity once more.