By Sanai Browning

Science Leadership Academy

Don’t think for a minute that online learning is easy. If you’ve done it before, the hurdles may not be as high to clear.  But for me, like most other students in the Philadelphia School District, remote learning is quite a mountain to climb.  The workload is the most daunting part.

Students are engaged in one form or another from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, with a 30-to-45-minute lunch break. If you add daily homework, which takes up two to three hours, that amounts to almost eight hours in front of a drab computer screen.

For many of us, this feels like prison.  And, indeed it is prison because our bedrooms essentially serve as a classrooms as well.

“Everyday students have a hard enough time in school under regular conditions,” said Salena Witmer, a junior at SLA Beeber. “When you add online learning and a pandemic into the equation, it becomes a swarm of emotions [hitting you] at all times. You don’t expect a car to run if it’s low on energy. So why do schools expect students to do the same?”  

So, we begin 2021 tired, exhausted, and frustrated. We hope this plague that’s ravaging the land will be lifted soon.