Hidden Benefits of Virtual Learning

Pros:

• The extra hour and a half of sleep is a game changer.

I honestly am luckier than a lot of people at magnet because it typically only takes me 15-20 minutes to get to school in the morning, and I know for some of you it’s a lot longer. I’m also a morning showerer, so add another 15 minutes to the list. I typically take another 20 minutes to do my morning routine and throw on my sweatpants for the day, and finally I usually take another 5 minutes to do things such as make coffee/let my dogs outside to use the bathroom. This puts us exactly one hour earlier than I have to wake up in order to make it to school on time, and the one hour is a good day. On a day where I actually want to look presentable at school you can add on an extra 15 minutes to my time. So all of this means if I want to arrive at school by 8:30 I would need to wake up at 7:30. I know a lot of you have gotten used to your schedule so you may not even realize, but the extra hour really does make a difference in my day. I’m able to wake up and start my day without guzzling a bang energy drink or relying on a large iced coffee to (barely) propel me through the day. 

• Finally, some vitamin D.

With online school, I’m finally able to sit outside and enjoy my favorite weather of the year (50-60 degrees with barely any humidity). Who knew you were able to learn while also receiving important vitamins that fuel your mental and physical health? Seriously though, the number  of days I spent looking longingly out of magnet’s classroom windows at the beautiful sunny day until I was finally allotted my 30 minutes of outside time (lunch) is too many to count. 

• Traffic.

Every magnet student knows how terrible the parking lot traffic is considering (in the big parking lot) there are a ton of lanes merging to get out one exit. Even if you aren’t in the big parking lot and instead are coming from the gravel lot, you have all the soa and magnet parents to deal with. There are times when I have spent an upwards of 25 minutes just to get out of the parking lot, which then increases the amount of traffic I have to deal with on my way home. This is obviously not an issue on A days when seniors are allowed to leave at 2, but on B days it’s either sprint to your car or be prepared to sit in traffic. Obviously, those who are virtual never have to deal with this traffic and have an extra 30-45 minutes of time to do whatever they choose. 

• I absolutely despise the classroom desks. 

I know this isn’t magnet’s fault, and I would find this same scenario at probably almost every school in the country. However this being said, I find the desks that we spend around 7 hours every day sitting in pretty uncomfortable. This is one of the main reasons I can be found wandering around the halls in multiple class periods throughout the day, I’m just trying to find a way to stretch my legs. At home, I have much more comfortable seating and I am able to get up and walk around my house (mostly) whenever I choose.

I could go on about the pros of virtual learning forever, but I’m at 100 words away from my requirement so I’ll use the last few to list some possible cons.

Cons:

• I don’t participate in my classes as much

This isn’t really a huge con considering I’m not really Ms. eager beaver, but I will admit there are moments where I think about unmuting myself to add something to whatever conversation is happening in the classroom. I usually never do though because 1. The number of times the teacher hasn’t heard me, I’ve been cut off by someone in the classroom (not purposely of course) is truly embarrassing, or I just miss the small space of silence where I’m able to unmute myself and talk. There’s nothing worse than gathering up the courage to unmute yourself and speak and the teacher doesn’t hear you/misses what you say because they’re also listening to the conversation taking place in the classroom. Gives me the ick for myself. 

• I miss bothering teachers and Ms. Pinckney

There’s nothing like popping into Ms. Pinckney’s office for a few minutes to distract her from the very important work she’s doing. The same goes for a few teachers. 

These are honestly the only cons I can think of for me personally. With that being said, I think virtual is still the better option for me. I will be returning to in-person learning on February 8th just to see if anything’s changed but we’ll see how long that lasts. See you soon raptors

Update: I made it one day and then I switched back to virtual learning.