Hybrid learning: Not worth the hassle

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Kelly Sikkema (Unsplash)

Is hybrid learning worth the hassle if students have to go home and then do all of their work?

What is the use of this ‘hybrid plan’? As a teacher’s kid, I go to school four days a week. The only way to describe this first week is ‘ok’. The sizes of classes were ‘ok’, the work was ‘ok’, the teaching was ‘ok’. 

I go to my first class and get on one of the few computers in the school, but I’m done with my work for two weeks already for the class, so I sit. I walk to the next class alone because there is no one really there to talk to. We learn some and write the answers, but I still have to type it all up at home because I am not allowed to submit a picture of my work or paper copies. I go to the next class and get lunch, eat in silence, do some work, but still I need to go home and type it up. Then I go up the stairs, take some notes, do some homework, and walk to the car. Seven hours of my day gone. I still need to go home, type up the little work I got done, and do writing and math for at least 3 more hours. While fully virtual, I would get all done before 4pm.

It feels like we get no incentive to be at school. I still have to do all of my work on a computer, but we have no computers at school. I just feel as though the days are wasted. No work seems to be done, no learning, and nothing social. All of our work is fully surrounding our computer; the computer we cannot bring to school. Seven hours are gone with what feels like nothing done. 

With the strange schedule and rules it felt like we were being talked down to: “follow the arrow on the ground, wash your hands, put your mask on.” Everyone said it over and over; it got repetitive and it felt as though they thought we could not retain the information or we never listened. 

The week drearily went by. I did what I was told: I wore my mask, I took a few notes, and I worked on the only non-online work I had. The incentive to come to school is not there; it feels as though our work is harder to be at school. I hope that as we all get more comfortable with the hybrid learning it will get better, but for now it seems pointless.