The First Weeks of Distance Learning

The inevitable has happened; the infamous coronavirus reached Nuevo León. It’s interesting to see that most of us enjoyed ASOMEX week not knowing it would be our last at school for a while. 

Putting that aside, I’m genuinely impressed at how ASFM was able to continue classes with seemingly no interruption. Classes almost proceeded as normal, and communication with teachers was honestly stronger than usual. There’s something about having your Google Hangouts chats always open that makes it easier to ask questions than it is when you’re in a classroom.

I will admit, the workload was heavy. From what I learned from other students, everyone was in a constant stress-fest as assignments kept up piling after one another each day. But this wasn’t entirely because of how we all tend to be less productive when in the comfort of our own home, but because the Distance Learning Program (DLP) began after a hectic week with almost no classes because of ASOMEX. It’s not that the DLP set us behind on school activities; it instead caught us up to where we should’ve been. We were already behind, and teachers did their best to use quarantine week one to catch up to where we would be if classes were never canceled. There was no way to avoid having more work. As much as we have more free time now, this isn’t a head-start into Spring Break.

Still, I can’t forget that week. While I avoided the fact that this was how I would spend my last few months of high school, I enjoyed working from home. It was refreshing and it gave me more time to exercise or play the new Animal Crossing game everyone was so excited about. 

That’s how I felt for the first two days.

As for Wednesday and Thursday, here I realized that all of the things that had been assigned were due for the same day. So much for exercise, as the casual slow-paced work I had been doing for the start of the week was now in rush mode.

Towards the end of the week, teachers of each grade held meetings, where it was decided to give extensions to most assignments, and to give students less screen time by minimizing the workload. I admire the school’s choice to follow a “Less is more” approach, and I’m eager to finish off the assignments that were caught in the middle of this transition and begin the ones designed for the DLP.