If you had told me in 2019 that the next year of my school life (and possibly the year after ) would be dominated by masked teachers, Microsoft programmes, and a laptop at the kitchen table, I would never have believed you. I’ll never forget the day we were told that we would not be attending school due to the pandemic. Someone from a few desks away announced how he was going to throw a massive party to celebrate “getting a few days off” – it didn’t take long for that to become a party of one. When going into lockdown for the first time I felt as if it was unlikely that I would learn anything. How wrong I was.
During the first lockdown we were introduced to Microsoft Teams, which we’re still using now. Teachers upload assignments each day and we submit them online, some assignments include an online function, like a quiz about the subject or a videoed lesson, we even read class novels as PDF files. During this lockdown we’ve begun to stream live lessons most days, where we can answer questions through the chat function. During the first lockdown I would write my work on paper and send in photographs of it, at the moment however I type it out in Word and send the document. It mightn’t be on the curriculum but in this lockdown I have learned how to use various Microsoft programmes, which I hope will come in handy eventually.
Another thing I learned came from the first lockdown; I began writing to my gran, and the etiquette of letter writing wasn’t something I remember covering in junior cycle English. Several letters later I have just about mastered it. Also because of the larger amounts of time we have for class work we have more time to go over topics we may not have understood first time, plus we can be shown more interesting content in a one sitting. For example, today one teacher sent us a recording of a lecture on physical reactions in the human body and some work regarding it, I completed in under an hour what when in class would have had to be worked on over a series of days in weekly segments when science class was on.
However it has not all been positive; it’s been difficult adjusting to all the new technology, and the safety precautions when we could still attend school. The social aspect of school is a lot less prominent now and it’s especially hard to concentrate when doing schoolwork at home. Personally, I just hope that we’ll get back to school soon and return to the way things were. Lockdown has been stressful for everyone and has torn up everyone’s plans, but if education during Covid-19 has taught us anything it’s that if we can make it out of this we can make it out of anything.
Holly Cooke is a transition year student at Merlin College.
