A Remote Learning Day Each Week Would Give Students a Healthy Break
Polls show that a majority of students would prefer some of their class meetings to take place online. Art: Hala Hassan
By LOGAN DAVIS-FOX
Picture this: You are in the middle of a stressful week filled with a project due in AP Physics, a test in AP Calculus, and a 2,000-word essay due in English. All you want is a break. However, you're only halfway through the school week, with the weekend nowhere in sight. But then you remember that tomorrow is one of your “remote learning days.” A wave of relief rushes through you.
In early 2020, when the Coronavirus hit, students switched from in-person to online school, resulting in massive changes in the education system. That provided both challenges and opportunities. We have since returned to fully in-person learning. But was this complete switch back to “normality” a mistake?
A poll from Forbes states that “more than 82% of students said they wanted at least some of their course meetings to take place online, with 41% of students preferring fully online learning, with no in-person element at all.” Also, the same poll states that “fewer than 18% of students wanted to have fully in-person courses.” This shows how a majority of students wish to have remote learning implemented into their education.
“Some teachers rush certain topics, but some students can’t grasp information as fast as others,” said Maya Itskovich ‘26. “With remote learning, this would be improved.”
“I’m in AP Chemistry, and we do almost a unit per week,” Itskovich said, “so if you don’t fully understand the topic, you have to teach yourself the rest.” Remote learning might help students understand the information given to them by their teachers without feeling overwhelmed.
Travel is an issue as well, as many students must wake up very early to accommodate for their long commutes.
Max Klopper ‘26 described his typical morning: “I wake up at 5:30 a.m. Then I take the bus for an hour, then the train for like 15 minutes, then it takes even longer to get home because of traffic.”
It's not just Klopper. Many students at Midwood live far away from school, so if they had remote learning as an option, they wouldn’t have to make the tiring and tedious commute all five days. Instead, they could sleep in and not have to worry about missing the bus or train.
Some high schools in the USA already offer a fully remote learning environment. For example, the University of Texas at Austin High School offers a “virtual high school” that accommodates both Texas and non-Texas residents. Graduates from UT High School have gone on to MIT, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins, according to College Transitions, and its students earned an average SAT score of 1170.
However, critics think it would be bad for schools to implement remote learning into teens' education because of the lack of social interaction. In an article in The Wall Street Journal, Jack Clements at the University of Mississippi states that “remote learning decreases students’ social interaction with their peers and their professors.”
“This reduction of socialization is in direct correlation with higher rates of depression and feelings of social isolation,” he adds. “People, especially during their college years, need to be around other people to foster the spread of ideas and to develop a strong sense of personal identity.”
There are other critiques, too. There’s the potential distractions of electronic devices, technical difficulties such as app glitches and unreliable internet, and the temptation to cheat. During remote learning, “all my work was online, so I looked up the answers,” Itskovich admitted. “I had no motivation to do the work myself.”
These are valid arguments. However, if we keep online school in moderation, we can limit these problems. The Department of Education could make just one or two days a week a “remote learning day.” This would meet the needs of students who live far away from school and have trouble understanding the topics taught at school. But since only one or two days would be remote, the lack of social interaction and potential distractions would barely have an effect. It would also give students a day to get caught up on their sleep.
As technology gets more and more integrated into our daily lives, it would only make sense to have it implemented more into our education as well. A good place to start would be an official remote day to break up that stressful week and give teens a chance to sleep in before tackling that AP Physics project or English essay.