This unusual school year may or may not have caused some changes for the incoming freshmen at Oliver Ames. The transition from middle school to high school is big because you have real responsibilities. When you do school half online and in-person you cannot get a good feel of those responsibilities. Freshmen have no experience at all so they base their opinions off of what they thought high school was going to look like.
“Hybrid learning has definitely changed my experiences with teachers (asking for help on assignments vs. setting up Meets later on in the day, etc.). I expected high school to be more liberating, as I remember one of my 8th Grade teachers promising school to entail that, but it hasn’t felt that way so far,” said Angelique Alphonse
You cannot get the real feel of a high school experience. Students do not get to go into school each day, instead, we have to either stay home everyday and be fully virtual and not have any in-school experience or we get to go in school 2 days a week, and that does not seem fair to students.
“Remote learning in some ways is easier and in other ways is harder for example it’s been way harder to focus when I’m at home as opposed to when I’m in school,” said freshman Charlotte Geaghan. “On the other hand it’s easier to keep track of my work. It definitely has changed my view of high school because not only have I never attended a normal year of high school but also because remote learning is so much different than what I imagine what a normal year in high school looks like.”
Most freshmen have loads of class/afternoon and homework assignments. With this hybrid school schedule you can imagine the workload would be more stressful and overloaded. People can imagine that the students like going to school more than hybrid.
“Freshman year is going a lot easier than I would have expected,” said Angel Whiteside-Mayor. “My grades are better than ever and I’m working harder and there is not as much work. Things are being explained more clearly and I understand things more. I think it is easier to be hybrid. Being fully remote would mean no social interaction and could suffer in that department, and being in school helps with social life and also learning because you have no distractions.”
As you can see most of the freshmen have totally different views of what freshmen year would look like vs. what it really looks like. Some students think that it’s easier and you benefit more this way. The freshmen still have no real experience of high school at Oliver Ames. Since the freshmen have not had a full school year people may wonder what their workspace’s look like.
Overall, this is just the beginning of this school year and the freshmen have lots of more high school experience to get a good grasp on what high school actually looks like in the long run of all this.