Sam and Sterling Last March, the COVID-19 pandemic racked the nation. No one knew what was going to happen or how. For the entire summer everyone had one question: how are we going to go back to school? And are we? When it was announced that we would start the school year online, everyone was confused on what to do, seeing as most people didn’t take online schooling previously, if at all. There are two sides to this argument, and that argument being In person school vs Online School. We are going to break it down and give our opinions. Ready? FIGHT!
Sam Says: This is a highly debated and discussed topic with face to face schooling being better than online. When we were in remote learning, so many things went wrong; between internet outages, distractions and no socializing, people were going crazy! The BGQ polled the student body and asked “would you rather do in person or online schooling?” and over 71% of people who responded voted for in person. Having a school system you can easily work with is important. It helps someone learn better than having something you can’t work properly in. Face to face vs. online isn’t just a popularity contest. It’s also something that helps students regularly. In person helps students be social, for one. I researched how being more social helps students and my findings were promising. The PBS article “The Science of Smart: How your Social Life in High School affects you today,” talks about how high schoolers being social can have long term impacts. In one instance, the article states, ”groups can still function well socially—if they find a comfortable niche among their classmates.” In other words, kids in groups like geeks, jocks, emo and different types of cliques feel comfortable and can help them be more social with other things too. This proves in person schooling is better because online isn’t being social at all. You aren’t talking to your friends, you’re not getting any interaction with anyone but a screen. We need social skills but we just aren’t getting any. If we have the proper precautions in place, why isn’t in person better? It’s safe with the strictness of mask wearing, sanitizing before and after riding the bus, and signing out to go to the bathroom to track you. With everything we are doing to protect ourselves from COVID-19, we should start getting back 14 // BGQ // November 2020
to normal, and going back to online won’t provide that. Everyone can remember before coronavirus and how school was before it. This is the new norm; with the proper precautions we are putting in place, we need to start transitioning back to what we all knew as school normally. And who doesn’t want that? The only problem is we can’t control the virus. This may give a point to the opposition, but with the things we can do to combat it, we will end up victorious. As long as we can still be safe, this throws a
“I get the help that I need when we have in person school. I also have the motivation to get my work done.” -Mackenzie Bergemann ‘22
“I get to see all of my friends and get a more in-depth learning experience.” -Ralphie Ford ‘22 point to in-person learning as well. With the recent outbreak at Central, we have some more safety issues. We need to make sure to take the maximum safety precautions so we don’t have another. Some things are just a given in this day and age: don’t cough on someone, make sure to social distance, try not to be next to someone at all times, and be sure to spread out. We are already semi-trained on what to do for COVID-19 and have many precautions in place. //
