It's a different world for returning students

As a senior in high school, putting life on hold is quite a challenge. The constant updates and news about our worldwide problem are exhausting. At this time of year, seniors' lives are changing as rapidly as the world is, and now we are distanced from our comfortable system of relationships we built over the past months and years of our lives. It can be easy to slip into a disappointing feeling about our school situation. But, I'd rather look on the bright side.

With our new system, you can go through a whole school day without wearing pants. (I personally wore pants.) I slept in until 9 a.m. - on a normal Tuesday I would have missed most of my first-hour class. With my free schedule, I cleaned my room and listened to some music, hmmm, getting to work is tough. I managed to sit down and get my Chromebook running at around 10 a.m. My desk had been decluttered and my tea was hot. Time to get back on that academic horse.

Cloquet High School uses Schoology software to manage schoolwork, communication with students, and it's a sort of home base for this new distance learning endeavor. On Schoology, students can connect with teachers, find and turn in assignments, and keep up to date on new information regarding anything. Schoology is a great resource, but like anything electronic, it can have issues. During Cloquet's first day of distance learning, Schoology had issues, I understand, with handling the workload of hundreds of students suddenly utilizing it for almost everything. If you are reading this, thanks tech people. These glitches made turning in my assignments a hassle, but not impossible. Converting, saving, exporting, getting a lay of the virtual land is what my first day looked like.

Technical difficulties aside, the teaching staff has done a wonderful job leaving updates and laying out weekly plans. Group calls are being used to connect as a class to ask and answer questions, discuss our ideas, and figure out problems.

CHS senior Katie Jameson said the first day was OK.

"So far so good," she said. "We're a generation that was mostly raised using technology so we'll get used to it with some practice."

Katie and I joined our physics class Tuesday morning for a lesson and discussion. Physically watching a problem be worked through in the front of the room definitely helps students understand concepts and rules. Distance learning comes with new problems like student engagement and barriers for immediate help. But the problems are not anything that cannot be solved and are being worked on by school faculty. Our system is new and quirky but it works.

During our virtual class, the same kids still asked questions and my friends and I still talked. I cannot believe that my parents' generation made it without Google hangouts. Jeesh.

With a few kinks and a learning curve, our current schooling situation is not the end of the world - even though it may feel that way for some. With a great community and school staff, our first day of distance learning will be one we can hopefully look back on with joy.

Writer Caleb Swanson is a former Pine Knot News intern and a senior at Cloquet High School. Contact him at [email protected].