Michigan students from PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs have been sharing their school experiences and stories that are important to them. This week, they share what they’ve experienced while learning remotely, and for some, how the return to in-person learning has been going.

 

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Crystal Onwenu, Cass Tech H.S.  One thing you are going into like the building, like before covid. You able to, like, put like home things behind you and just focus like on your work because you’re, you know, in the building, in the environment of students and teachers. I feel like for me, I didn’t really have a designated area to do my work or to do my classes. So, it was just weird, not weird, but it was, it didn’t feel like school, and not a lot of distractions at home. If I had a choice, I don’t think I would choose to do virtual learning.

Lalitaditys Akkaraju, Novi Middle School  Virtual learning is great and all, and the teachers are doing a great job of adjusting and helping their students learn, but nothing beats in-person learning.

Michael Castle, Fraser H.S.  We’ve been doing face to face for about a week now with majority of my first semester being virtual. When we had virtual learning, that was, that was the worst, frankly, at least for me. I felt like giving up in classes and some of them I did.

Jocelyn Zayas, FV Pankow  I don’t really do well online. My grades slip when I do online, because I feel like school is an option when I’m at home. And so, I procrastinate and then I don’t do my work and then my grades drop. But when I’m actually in school, I do all my work and I get good grades.

Toni Edwards, FV Pankow  Going from online to back in person was really hard for me, because I was behind online. And so, a lot harder to stay focused online. But being in person actually is way better than online.

Richard Reed, FV Pankow  So my friends, they like so far behind because covid to them off. Nobody knew this was going to happen, so they like confused on on-line work, but you know, they trying.

Karl Berno, FV Panko  For me I ask a lot of questions and I rely on teachers to be there for me. And it was hard for me because I would have to text them, you know, wait for their response, and I’m over here, you know, stressing about it.

Jack Grasseschi, FV Pankow  And currently all in-person school. We did switch to online at one point, but now we are back in person. My social life has actually changed a lot. I don’t really talk to my friends as much, because we don’t see each other. There’s not a lot of social time for us to talk at school anymore. We do have lunch together, but it’s very distant and not the same as it used to be.

Micah Martin, FV Pankow  I’m doing hybrid, so that means that I go to school just a few times and then I do online for the rest of my classes. There are no after school activities right now unless you are literally by yourself just practicing alone because we’re not allowed to.

Richard Reed, FV Pankow  Sports got canceled push back, wear a mask all the time. You can’t take them off.

Reyes Martinez, FV Pankow  I’ve been trying to be more careful, you know, wearing a mask literally everywhere, but sometimes you still get it.

Nathan Schihl, FV Pankow  I’m most worried about getting my family sick, and then that kind of spreading to more people.

Mariah Davis, FV Pankow  So you have to take a lot of extra precautions; we have to wear masks constantly. And there’s always that threat of being switched again to on-line like we just were. So online school is definitely different, because it was still school. So, it was different than last year’s on-line school, because it was still school. So, we still had to wake up in time and we still had assignments that were due. Whereas last year it was credit, no credit. So, last year we didn’t necessarily have to wake up for every single ZOOM. But this year was important that we did because it all counted. I’m kind of just looking forward to the end of the year because I know that I will not have to wear a mask as much, because I won’t be in school all day.

Nick Schultz, FV Pankow  Going back to lockdown, it would probably be the worst thing to happen to me. That’s not something that I’m looking forward to. But what I am looking forward to is getting out of this. You know, it’s looking pretty good right now. We’re here right now, so I would consider that a win.