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middle school
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2021-01-15
School during COVID😢
School during COVID is okay because there is a lot of ups and downs. For example School is quite simple but I want to go on campus. Stay home gets kinda boring and thats one of the down falls. -
2021-01-15
my online school experience
Online school isn't that bad. I get to be in the comfort of my own home and away from probably sick kids. I feel better that way anyway. It's definitely easier too. I'm more focused at home surprisingly. I don't want to do it forever though. Maybe just for this year and then I can be a freshman. It's a good experience and others make it seem like it's the worst. It's kind of harder to learn but, that's only if you dont want to. When people tell me it's just as bad for me since its my last year of middle school, I definitely dont think so. I'm happy to leave and at least my last year of middle school is more interesting than others. -
2021-01-15
Online School
Online School has been rough it has its ups and many down. For Example its so hard to pay attention when you get a buzz on your phone and go to check it next thing you know your on it for 1 hour. The up side is that you dont hto get ready becadsue at my school you have to wear a uniform but in online you can wear whatever. Its also so much harder to learn because you can ask you teacher a question and have them show it to you. What makes it even harder for me is that im a visual learner. These are my reasons why i like and dislike online school -
0021-01-15
Virtual School
During virtual learning I learned a lot of different things. At first it was hard to pay attention, learn and just sit still for 80 minute classes on a computer. I was so used to shorter classes that would be done in a snap, but that changed quickly. I slowly started liking online school more and more. My schedule was usually waking up 5 minutes before class and setting up to learn. Then during break and lunch I could eat whatever I wanted and I got to go on my phone. I liked online because I have a lake house and we could go up there whenever we wanted. Now that we are back in person school I am definitely having an easier time learning but its hard waking up in the morning and sitting still for so so long. But I love seeing people and getting to socialize with people. Although sometimes I switch back to zoom for a day because school is very tiring and draining. -
2021-01-15
Online Learning
While learning online during COVID-19 there where many differences to normal school. I would wake up at sometime between 7:15 and 7:30 and I would go and eat and be at school online by 8:05 and everyone in class would be tired from waking up so early. One of the obstacles faced from learning on time where that it was hardy to pay attention and be really engaged with the class because there wasn't somebody right there making sure you are paying attention. One of the benefits of learning online was that we got more sleep and we had more time to do homework because you didn't have to drive home after school, it was easier to feel motivated to do homework at break because what else could you do, and the classes had longer periods so you had time to work on homework in class. -
2021-01-15
Virtual School
It is great and it is bad in virtual school. In my opinion, I think it's good and bad because you get to have a lot more rest time and you can sleep in. On the other hand, I do miss the benefits of coming and interacting with my teachers and my friends. All and all, I cant wait till we go back to normal. -
2020
Learning online
Learning online is much harder than usual, because it is much easier to not listen. Sure we are learning the same stuff as in school, but all the fun aspects of school disappear during online. That makes me have no motivation to learn. However I also like it because it gives me a bunch of free time to do art and stuff. Overall i like normal school more. -
2020-12-25
The first Christmas of Covid
Christmas throughout this Pandemic was slightly different from what I would consider normal, mainly because I did not travel to my grandparent's house, which is closer to Sacramento. Otherwise, we got bagels from a local bakery, we opened presents and called our family, so there was no real difference from the normal Christmas that I have come to expect. -
2021-01-07
Christmas in Lockdown
Christmas in lockdown felt somewhat surreal. Because there was danger outside, in the streets, and a new president, it was very chaotic. The holiday did seemed rushed as well. Everyone felt the same-it was too fast, and felt off. I hope this year we can end off the holidays with a more positive note and spend more time appreciating it. -
2020-12-14
Middle Schooler during Covid-19
The coming of Covid-19 had a huge impact on not only me but everyone else. During Covid-19 Lockdown I wasn't able to go places and see and visit friends without being six feet or wearing a mask. I wasn't able to train for sports or have practices. I am still not able to go to school to get an education or even just see my best friends that I am used to seeing every day. I had to adapt to this strange way of life and had to figure out ways to do my everyday things. These are ways Covid-19 has impacted my life and ways I have adapted to it. -
2020-12-14
Middle Schooler during Covid-19
Covid-19 coming into this world had a strong impact on me and a strong impact on the world. This is because I was not able to go outside to my favorite restaurants or around friends without staying 6 feet apart. I wasn't able to work out and train for sports. My learning ability got harder and harder every day because I wasn't able to go to school. During this hard time, I had to adapt to these struggles and figure different ways to do these things during these times. -
2020-12-13
Online Learning during Covid
In March of 2020, My school Oaks christian was shut down and moved to online because of Covid-19. At first I was extremely excited for this and thought it would be just an easy two weeks of doing online work. It was very nice and a good break to have for the time being and I did really enjoy it, I was so relaxed by it and took off a lot of stress. After 2 months that changed fast. It went from all fun and easy then to more work than I have ever done, I was extremely overwhelmed and had to do so many things and I hated it. Lucky summer break came along and I was finally stress free, That was until the school year of 2020 came up and now I am more stressed than ever. I am a eighth grader that's getting assigned high school level work at a much higher than average work load, I do hope this gets better but this is truly hard to get through. -
2020-12-14T12:39
covid 19 experience
During this pandemic, I started doing online school, which is horrible. I had to sit on zoom ALL DAY LONG which is just as awful as it sounds. The only good thing was that I didn't have to wear a uniform hehehe. I actually had a good summer even though everything in my state was closed. I went to Wyoming, Utah, Newport, and Lake Powell. In the middle of 8th grade this past month I found out I was moving from California to Utah, which I was happy about because I like Utah a lot better than California, even though I'm sad to leave all my friends and family behind. My parents were lucky enough to keep their jobs when a lot of other people aren't. -
2020-11-10
Virtual Learning for the Parents of New Middle Schoolers
As a mother of twin 12-year-olds who started middle school during the pandemic, virtually, there are many challenges we have faced. I am working from home during the pandemic and must help them both with school work. They are both in the gifted program, which makes the curriculum that much more difficult, especially since as 6th graders this is their first year in middle school. I find that on top of working from home, I have to learn the materials my children are learning before I can help them. As a parent, I have been forced into the teaching role, and there is not much anyone can do about it. The teachers are doing all that they can but virtual learning is difficult fpr all parties involved. As a history major, I am struggling to help my daughters in pre-algebra, an eight grade math class, and worry that the virtual setup may damage their academic progress. Also, there has been a major social development delay, as this is a transitional time. -
2020-09-08
Child Struggles with Distance Learning
Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you. This story is important to me because while I do not have kids, I believe education is so important, especially the quality of education they are receiving. I have many friends that are teachers who are struggling with distance learning themselves and have also questioned the quality of education that children are receiving now as they believe any one-on-one help they would be able to give in a classroom is unavailable now to students who already struggle with learning in a regular classroom setting. It is difficult enough for adults to be self-motivated with online education and for kids this has been deemed to be extremely difficult. -
2020-03-16
Silence at School, March 2020
This is a true anecdote about my experience as teacher during the pandemic, and the sensory experience by which I recall these events. I am a teacher at a middle school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In winter of 2019, I was aware of the coronavirus, which was something my students often joked about. For instance, if a child was out sick one day, the students would say the he or she had coronavirus, and everyone would laugh about it. It was funny to them at this time, because the virus was something that was mostly contained to places outside of the United States, and everyone thought it was preposterous that there was so much speculation about it on the news. My students engaged in speculation as well, and many of them concluded that it was actually a big cover-up for a zombie plague, and they would try to determine if I or their peers were also zombies in disguise. I recall hearing them laugh about it in the class, and I especially recall the return of one of our students to class after she had been out from the flu. I remember them asking her if she was a zombie, or if she had eaten bats before she got sick (remember, these are middle-school kids). Winter passed pretty much as usual, and cases began to occur in the US early in 2020. It was still seen as no big deal, generally. In March, we started to hear news stories about the virus in Winston-Salem. Some people claimed to know people who knew people who were related to someone with the disease in Greensboro. More and more cases began to appear, but it still seemed like something distant to us. Gradually, the sickness moved from Greensboro to Winston-Salem. I caught a cold in March, and by the end of the day on a Wednesday, I was feeling pretty bad. I told my many bosses that I would be out of work on Thursday, and on Thursday evening, I called out again. The first day that I was out sick, the school district had decided to close down the schools until further notice, starting the next day. I never got the chance to tell my kids goodbye, which was very painful, as we were all close and we had such a good experience in my class. Today, in October of 2020, I still haven’t seen any of them, as my school district is currently closed for in-person school. I wish very badly that I had the opportunity to say goodbye to them. Those are the events as they occurred chronologically. I will now recall the sounds that constitute my memory of the time. To begin with, my school is loud—our students are beyond unruly. I can recall the sounds of the end of a regular school day: raucous laughter, shouting, cursing, threats, insults, loud rap music, and the sound of me flipping the switch to cut off the overhead lights as we prepared to exit the classroom and make our way to the school buses. Then comes the sound of the announcements overhead, which no one can hear over the students, then the prolonged loud and dull tone of the "bell" which signals the beginning of the stampede to the buses. A chorus of shouts raises immediately—a proclamation of victory and freedom. It is exuberant. What follows is hundreds of footsteps on linoleum tiles, backpacks shuffling as kids adjust them on their backs, more yelling, screaming, and swearing, the sounds of an occasional "runner," who knocks the other students down to get to the buses, a teacher shrilly, piercingly yelling at him to go back and "try again", and reminding him that "you will not go up these stairs unless you can walk up them!," a muttered "f---you, b----," from a male voice that is just about to begin deepening as he turns around to try again, and so on until we get to the buses, load those kids up, and ship them out. Going to my car every day after work is over, my ears ring as I sit in the silence of my car with the doors shut before starting the engine and making my way home. I often sit for just a minute or two and enjoy the silence before departing, but the ringing in my ears gets uncomfortably loud, and I finally turn the car on and leave. When I go back to school on the Monday following my sick leave, the difference is remarkable. The school district has instructed us to come in safely, get whatever we need from our classroom that we require to work at home, and leave as soon as possible. Teachers are strictly instructed to only walk directly to and from their classrooms to their vehicles, not to visit with their friends, etc. Everyone is in their classroom, working quietly. The only sounds I hear as I walk down the halls to my room are the hum of overhead fluorescent lighting and my heels striking the linoleum tiles, echoing off the walls and rows of lockers. I hear my key turn in the lock of my classroom door, the flick of the switch to on, more humming fluorescent lights. Shuffling papers and sliding metal desk drawers and file cabinets come next. With a handful of papers in my arms (I travel light), I cut off the lights—the humming stops—and my heels strike the linoleum tiles until I open the exit door, walk across the parking lot, and leave. This time, the silence of my car is nothing extraordinary. Gone are the shouts, the yelled jokes, the subsequent laughter, the retaliatory swearing. Also gone are the kids coming up to me to just say "hey," do one of the complex handshake rituals we have worked out, and to ask me if they can have a dollar for a cookie in the cafeteria, which is a request that I have obliged so often that I will count it as a charitable donation on this year's tax return. On that last day in the school building, there was no sound of a kid coming up to me to tell me how well he did in last night's basketball game, and how poorly his best friend did by comparison, or a girl walking up to tell me that an unpopular teacher has once again worn ugly clothes to work, and that her shoes don't match either—middle school students pay a lot of attention to these things. Put simply, those are all happy sounds. They are the sounds of kids doing what kids do in 2020, saying the things that they say, and teachers managing the best they can. The sound of kids coming up to me to talk are the sounds of acceptance—acceptance of a teacher into their lives, who is usually the categorical enemy of the student. I'm glad to be an exception. These are the pre-Covid sounds. What follows conveys emptiness. The sound of echoing footsteps rebounding from the walls demonstrates how vacant the hallways are. The fact that I can hear the overhead lights hum is amazing in its novelty. The chatter of students is all gone, the desks, empty. For a teacher who loves his students, the sounds that follow the March arrival of the pandemic are the sounds of loneliness. -
2020-07-24
Summer School Selfie
Did you even teach summer school if you didn't take a selfie? At the end of our 3 week in person summer school our principal ordered in food for all of the staff. There weren't many of us so we were able to share a meal together while still maintaining proper social distancing. This was the only time that we didn't have to wear a face covering of any sort. I remember how relieved I was when that day ended because I was tired of teaching summer school. But as we are beginning our year online I now miss those days because I got to interact with students in person rather than on a computer screen. The districts near us just decided to remain online until Ocotober 1, 2020 and I have a feeling that a similar decision will be made in my district as well. -
2020-03-18
Middle School Shut Down
This photo show the shutdown of the schools, which for me as a student impacted me directly. It was also a striking image to me because it showed how much things had changed that the school was closed off and empty on a school day when school would usually be in session. -
2020-05-29
Middle School - Final Staff Meeting, Budget Cuts, & Student Population
Staff Meeting 5/29/2020 Agenda: Wrap up the year Reflection: Today we learned that our Title 1 funding will not be increased and most will be cut for the next year. We are losing 2 staff members because of this cut and that leaves us in a place where we need to find elective classes for 240 students next year. We additionally lost another elective teacher this year as her funding was moved towards an instructional coach position. Middle schools are also in a unique situation right now as we are experiencing a drop in our attendance numbers. This drop is because our students right now were born during the economic recession of 2008 and the years immediately following. The 2008 recession is credited with a drop in the birth rate from 2008 to 2010. There were tears on our meeting as teachers are frustrated with our system moving forward. Our district was very fortunate to have the finances to weather this original economic storm but as we look forward we have learned that we don’t have the money to keep everyone on staff. -
05/06/2020
Circling
The students are 6th graders at Colorado Academy, a PreK - 12 independent day school in Denver, Colorado. After departing for Spring Break, and not returning to physical school, the students began Learning From Home and taking classes via Zoom. After 8 days in this “new school” the students wrote reflections on their “new reality." They were given complete freedom to craft any type of statement that tapped into their emotions about the change forced upon them by the Coronavirus pandemic. Please note that neither of these pieces was edited by me or by their parents (they actually had not see them until I asked for permission, and I did not read them until they were turned in to be graded). -
2020-05-18
Go Back to Normal!!!
I have learned in this quarantine that is you want to do something and not be lazy, then you must attack it head on and just go for it. The hardest part of accomplishing something is definitely starting. If you can start the thing you want, then you are more motivated to finish it because you have already spent time and effort trying to accomplish the thing you want. Even when I get out of this quarantine, I am going to try to apply this to my daily life. I really wonder when things are going to get back to normal, or if things will go back to normal. This might be the new normal which is a scary thought. I hope this is not the new normal because I had a plan for my future. Well kind of, but this is definitely not what I had planned. I am trying to remember that it is not about what I want for my future or what I think is supposed to happen in my life. It is about God’s plan and what he wants to happen in my life. *Original text in Creator: Nicole Dumitrascu #LSMS #NSD -
2020-04-02
Cobb Middle School Misses Its Children
We passed by our kid's school and they had changed the sign. They miss their kids. Our kids miss their school.