By Chris Zhu I
As the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global shutdown and sent everyone into quarantine, schools around the world have been focused on resuming normal activities online. In this unprecedented time, institutions have embraced the use of online media to connect students and teachers and digital teaching platforms on a scale never seen before. Just like embracing the many other parts of current quarantine life, adjusting to an entirely online system hasn’t been an easy process and has required frequent adjustment. RL students have experienced this themselves – after a somewhat unpleasant first few days of long online school days, the school thankfully responded to students’ feedback and consequently adapted to fewer online classes and a longer lunch break. In the spirit of recreating the school environment remotely, RL has also run occasional online Halls and homerooms to simulate community gatherings. While our community has made significant progress with successful remote learning, it is interesting to see how other schools have responded to the crisis. I polled a few friends from ISL schools and some other nearby schools to see what their experiences were with the new online system.
Starting off with online classes, it seems like most other schools have devised online curricula similar to those of RL. Winsor has 2-3 synchronous online classes each day, along with some free time in between classes. Assessments such as essays and tests are still running normally at Winsor, and the homework load has been slightly lightened to around 5 hours per class per week. Unfortunately for seniors, however, their school year has been extended a week, so some of their classes have additional units to study. Both Rivers and Nobles have followed a similar online schedule, running around 4-5 and 2-3 synchronous classes each day respectively.
Public schools have a slightly different situation, as is to be expected. Because class sizes are often larger and teachers have many more students to manage, online classes are inherently less frequent. Newton South, for example, only requires 20 minute meetings twice per week. Homework is still given out as usual, but all assessments have been cancelled and the grading system has switched to pass/fail. Similarly, Needham High School only has one 35 minute class period per class per week, and assessments and homework are very limited as well.
Boarding schools are in a different situation – because they have to account for students in different time zones, classes must be asynchronous. Milton, for example, has optional synchronous meetings during the week, but also has opted to have pre-recorded videos from teachers posted online every Monday. Homework assignments are also weekly, with a workload of 3-4 hours per subject per week. Similarly, Phillips Academy has completely asynchronous classes with optional synchronous meeting periods scattered throughout the week.
Apart from setting up online classes, schools have also been focused on redesigning their sports practices and events to suit the current situation. Winsor, Brooks, and Nobles, to name a few, all have virtual meetings for their sports teams, whether they be daily or a few times each week. Winsor has also required teams to do workouts together online, and athletes have to log training hours outside of their synchronous meetings. However, most other sporting events have been cancelled for these schools, and in the case of public schools such as Newton South and Needham High school, all sports-related events have been cancelled.
Community gatherings, an important part of the usual school routine, have also seen a significant decrease in number as schools adjust to an online system. Winsor is still keeping occasional weekly homerooms and advisory meetings, and Rivers, surprisingly, is increasing its frequency of advisory meetings, perhaps in order to balance the lack of other community events. As with many other things, most public schools have cancelled all of their community gatherings.
Nearly all schools, public and private, have worked out some sort of online graduation ceremony and senior activities.
Bowing the realities of the situation, RL has altered its traditional Closing Exercises. Instead, a pre-recorded virtual graduation will be broadcast beginning at 9 am on Saturday, June 6, including addresses by Mr. Brennan; the Commencement Speaker, Mr. O’Connor (father of senior Liam); valedictorian Avi Attar; and readings by Assistant Headmaster, Mr. Pojman and Class I President, Collin Bergstrom. Beginning at noon, all seniors will be invited to school – on a pre-arranged schedule – for a “drive-by” pickup of their diplomas along with an opportunity to be photographed with their parents on the Senior Gerass.
Nearly all schools, public and private, have worked out some sort of online graduation ceremony and senior activities. Winsor, however, stands out in its approach to graduation, guaranteeing an in-person graduation sometime in the future (perhaps Thanksgiving break) in addition to a virtual graduation ceremony in the next few weeks.
In the end, the current pandemic has affected the education system in many unprecedented ways, forcing a redesign of various aspects of class curricula and school events. As we work through this challenging situation guided by student and teacher initiative, however, we have found ways around many problems and we should remain optimistic for what the future holds.
