Parents and students have had to make a lot of adjustments and sacrifices over the past 18 months of online schooling to ensure their mental and physical health as well as their educational success.
Natalie Caesar said her 23-year-old daughter at UWI, her 19-year-old son, who attended Queen’s Royal College (QRC), and her 16-year-old daughter at St Francois Girls' College all had different experiences with online learning.
“First, I needed to make sure the children had all they needed for school. So while they would have had laptops and books, the three of them were now competing for space all day to be able to do their work.
"Before, when they had homework they would come out into the study area and go back into their rooms and someone else comes out. But I had to provide infrastructure so everyone ended up with a desk and chair in their room so everyone had their own work space.”
She said with online school their sleep cycle changed drastically and they would overeat, as they were at home all day.
She added that in the beginning they would wake up, have breakfast and get ready for school. But many teachers doubled up on the work they gave their students, since the children were at home all the time. That left the children feeling tired and overloaded with schoolwork.
She told Sunday Newsday her eldest daughter always got good grades but is also quiet and reserved. Now that she is at home, she hardly interacts with friends and has instead channelled all her energy into her schoolwork.
Online schooling was a positive step for her son, however. She said QRC was very efficient and structured and, as he used to be easily distracted at school, having to work at home left him able to focus and get his work done.
His only issue was that his teachers were not as accessible as they were in physical school, so if he had a problem, he could not go to them outside of class time.
On the other hand, she said St Francois was very disorganised, with almost no classes in the first school term, from September 2020.
“At the time, she was in form four so she did exams this year. They lost a lot of time and even when they came onto a platform, some of the teachers were still not teaching.”
Then, being an extrovert, her younger daughter was not dealing well with being isolated. She missed interacting with her friends, and could not go anywhere which led her to depression.
“For her, the sudden change was mentally challenging. Two weeks turned into a year and a half and everything was in one space. There was no sport, no outdoor exercise, her sleep pattern changed. Her anxiety level increased, concerned that I would get covid when I left the house to go to work. And after exams I realised her hair started dropping from the stress.”
[caption id="attachment_912561" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A teacher hands out the SEA exam results to parents of the students of Crystal Stream Government Primary School on Thursday. Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly said online classes owing to the covid19 pandemic affec
