Emme

Upon finding out about the coronavirus, my friends and I brushed it off. Sure, I was empathetic for the citizens of China whose lives were flipped upside down, but it had not directly changed our community or my life. I was immediately reminded of when Ebola had broken out, and how though that was a very serious and deadly disease, it didn’t change my life or anyone I knew in a big way. So, assuming COVID-19 would go a similar way, I ignored the warnings all over the news.

Then, seemingly all of a sudden, the coronavirus was in the United States. Still, my family and I remained calm. It’s states away, and everything will be fixed soon.

Right?

Now, writing this while ending our first week of online learning due to being quarantined, it is safe to say that this isn’t like anything else we have ever experienced.

Making the transition to online learning and being asked to say quarantined in our homes has been confusing, stressful, and a little bit scary. My younger brother, a student at Oberon Middle School, and I have had some different experiences with making the switch.

Ralston Valley was very helpful in keeping us informed about what the plan was and how we would continue our learning online. It has been quite the change, but communication with my teachers and friends have definitely helped my transition.

Doing online classes, in my opinion, is both a blessing and a curse. I’ve been getting more sleep and now I am able to get things done on my own time, but the distractions that are around me at home make it easy for me to get distracted. It’s been a struggle to make myself complete assignments on time when things like my phone, the TV, and my computer are tempting me to take a break.

Gage Clymer, my brother, is a 6th grader at Oberon. He and I have both struggled to stay focused, but we both have a lot of fun being able to do classwork while sitting next to each other and watching movies. Clymer agreed that this has definitely been a change and there has been a lot of different emotions while trying to get everything situated. “I was frustrated when I was trying to figure out what I needed to do, and I feel like Oberon didn’t do a great job telling us exactly what was going on.”

This surreal experience has been different for everyone, but I think we can all agree that it has been difficult to adjust to. Hopefully in the next few weeks, we will be given more information, and online school will adapt and change as students and teachers learn more about our new learning process.