How Online School is Affecting Elementary Students By: Caroline Mastandrea

 It's safe to say that school has been tough for everyone these past months. From kindergarten to college students are tasked with online learning of subjects they have never seen before. Although mostly all grade levels are struggling with how to balance online school, many people think of high schoolers and college students when it comes to the hardest age to be in right now. This could be true in some ways, but many are forgetting the basics being taught in younger grades that students need to know. Interviewing Emma Grano, a second-grader at Alpine School, and her older sister Lilly (4th grade) we will find out more of how younger students are being taught, and how they are feeling about this virus.

Emma is 7 years old and is going through second grade all virtually. Her favorite subject would normally be gym, but she says now “all we do is push-ups, it's not games like it used to be.” She says she would much rather be in school, and when asked my exclaimed that “the teacher isn't there to help me. I don't like to unmute and ask a silly question.” Emma is a bright kid but her least favorite subject has always been math. Math is something that is alone hard to learn in person, but online younger students can easily mess up on the basics, therefore affecting them in the long run. In Mrs. Graham's second-grade class they are learning how to subtract, or in Emma's words “takeaways”. Subtraction is such a basic concept used in almost every math problem, so if it is tough to understand from a young age due to the circumstances of teaching, this will nowhere near benefit kids' future in education.

Moving on to Lilly, a 10-year-old in 4th grade, she deals with the new ideas of switch classes online. Having two teachers Lilly has more of a built schedule, but she too would rather be in school because “the teacher would actually be there to answer my questions, not on the screen”. Just like her little sister Lillys least favorite class is math, where they are rounding decimals. Her favorite class is reading or gym, but she “used to like gym better when I was with my friends and playing real games, not just scavenger hunts.” Lilly is such a social girl, but says that it's just easy not to talk in class now, so she’ll never ask or answer questions. This is not a good way to raise kids, being scared to unmute themselves, because it can easily translate to in-person learning. 

It's no lie that COVID is affecting everyone's school experience, but when it comes to younger grades being all online is doing more harm than good. Social skills that are learned at an early age are limited, and the overall learning experience is tough to take in. After hearing from two elementary students, it is clear how online school for younger students especially can negatively affect their education in the long run.