As the first semester came to an end, students look back on the highs and lows of the unprecedented semester. Though no one could have anticipated the events of the past year, students still managed to enjoy the aspects of school even from home.
Junior Lila Motamedi admitted that “it is so hard to learn during distance learning because of distractions and how some concepts just do not make sense on the screen.” However, even through this unique year, her favorite class has been her AP Lang class. She emphasized that Mrs. Strub is “an amazing teacher and was very understanding about the challenges of distance learning,” this just being one of the reasons why she liked the class so much.
Mrs. Strub’s AP Language class also included several interactive projects and activities. Motamedi’s favorite was an environmental proposal essay because she felt that it was “relevant to real life,” but also gave her the opportunity to choose what she was interested in writing about: the beef industry. Even though it can be intimidating to participate over Zoom, Motamedi values the class’ interesting discussions and looks forward to contributing more this semester.
In-person learning is not the only aspect of school students miss. Sophomore Fabiana Bolaños expresses her nostalgia for social interactions at school when simply stating that she misses the little things such as “dressing up for school and soccer practices.”
Despite missing some aspects of interaction, Bolaños explains that her chemistry class was something that she looked forward to the most last semester because she felt that the subject was one of her strongest. While she reinforces the need for students to maintain concentration in order to succeed, Bolaños adds that “pear decks helped me stay focused in class,” and was overall her favorite part.
Freshman Sadie Scherer said that distanced learning has not prevented Dr. Richards from incorporating her energy and enthusiasm into her biology class projects. Scherer claims that Dr. Richards always keeps the class involved and engaged, saying that she “got to learn things I hadn’t learned about before.” Additionally she describes the Biology class curriculum as “building on itself after each unit,” but acknowledges that she “feels like [she] is still learning a lot even from home.”
