Online Classes cannot be the "new normal"

This is for all the adults who think children enjoy online classes. In this blog, I will mainly be focusing on how teenagers (such as myself) perceive online classes.

First of all, staring at a screen for 5 hours a day in one spot isn’t exactly our idea of perfect and interesting schooling. IT’S MIND NUMBINGLY BORING.  All of us are going through a tough time and piling on more work to do and more material to memorize isn’t a good way to help us to cope with our deteriorated mental health.

For all the ADULTS who are saying “But children will miss out on their education!” these adults don’t know what they are talking about (The word ‘adults’ is in quotes as nobody cares what children think). India is way too obsessed with exams and education and can’t be bothered to think about the stress, brain fog, loneliness and anxiety the youth is going through now. There has to be a better way of educating us. You can’t just transform education into online classes like how corporate companies are making their employees “work from home” online.

Considering the worst case scenario where covid cases are skyrocketing day by day, online classes cannot and should not be perceived as the new “normal”. We need to be around our peers and socialize, talk, laugh, play sports, resolve conflict and learn from each other.

Also, since all our teachers think all of us are jobless, sitting at home which is a huge misconception.  We have around five hours of online classes and a heap of homework every day. This stereotype of “You are a student” or “You are in 10^th grade” or “You are going to write your BOARD EXAM” is stupid. First of all, we need to exercise, read beyond the outdated syllabus that we are taught, get 9 hours of sleep, take care of our mental health, listen to music and engage in different hobbies. We also have different ideas and things we are passionate about. Stop telling teens that their dream as a future rapper, singer, comedian, youtuber, author, writer, and actor is stupid and that “there is no scope”. We are Gen-z and are part of a generation which is against police brutality, patriarchy, racism and caste discrimination and we are solving all the problems that the previous generations created. We can do anything we put our mind to.

WE ARE NOT ONLY STUDENTS. Studying is not our first and only priority. We have a lot on our plate and school is piling on a second and third helping. We are bombarded with assignments, homework, tests and projects and our stress is over the roof. The online classes are not even useful and majority of our “learning” is self-study. None of the teachers want us to discuss, debate and thoroughly understand what we are learning. Everyone is in a mad rush to finish the syllabus, as if it’s some kind of debt hovering above our heads.

I only get to sleep properly on weekends and I barely have the time to work out every day. I used to be able to jog at least 5k every day and now I don’t have any motivation to do anything. Dragging my tired body out of bed in the morning seriously makes me reflect on how dull, horrible and boring my life has gotten. Online classes are creating sleep deprived, stressed out and depressed teenagers.

Stop these online classes and stop giving us so much of work. Give us a break, the Boards. If you want, we can all read a little about each subject every day and send our progress to you, but apart from that, we want to do nothing else but work on ourselves to overcome all our limitations and be the best versions of ourselves we can be. Nothing will happen if we don’t write the Board Exam this year.

From the mind of a 15 year old.