Education & Youth | Arts & Culture | Youth Arts Journalism Initiative | Wilbur Cross High School | Metropolitan Business Academy
Maxwell Gamboa Photo.
Ella May thinks about the day she will be able to see her friends again at school. Maxwell Gamboa finds himself thriving unexpectedly behind a screen. Both are navigating what it means to be a New Haven high schooler in the midst of COVID-19 and learning that has been virtual for over nine months.
Ella May is a sophomore at Wilbur Cross High School and the Educational Center for the Arts (ECA). Max Gamboa is a junior at Metropolitan Business Academy. The students have both learned how to cope with remote learning, and are trying to focus on the positives of this year.
Max, who is 16, used to struggle with anxiety at school (read more about his remote learning plan here). Now, he said he feels that remote learning put him at ease because he’s behind a screen and not in a physical classroom. He finds it much easier to complete work and be himself.
“Being at home is easier,” he said.
He added that attending school behind a screen is easier because he doesn’t have to sit in an actual class with people. His current classmates include a Brazilian shorthair cat named Ruby and his 1-year-old tortoise, Akiko.
Max said he sleeps in more than he did during in-person learning. Prior to COVID-19, students had to be at Metropolitan Business Academy for the first bell at 7:40 a.m. That often meant he was out of bed shortly after 6 a.m. Now, classes start at 8:30 a.m. That translates to an extra hour of sleep on most days.
Ella May. Emma MartinMooney Photo.
Before COVID-19, Ella loved spending time with her friends after school and on the weekends. In quarantine, she finds herself taking walks with her dog on class breaks and spending time alone. It's hard, she said—but it has also given her time to think about why her learning environment still works for her.
She said it's important to her to maintain the same kind of routine she would if she were still attending school in person. Each morning, she tries to get up early for class, to give herself time to get ready for school. While she doesn't always succeed—"sometimes I wake up one minute before my class ... we all have those days" she laughed—it helps her maintain a sense of normalcy.
Where classes once took place in sun-soaked classrooms, she now learns from her desk. Before the year began, she turned her desk and computer into a learning station. Mostly, she said, it's not so bad—unless her mom makes noise as she walks through the house, or a class goes too long. When some run over an hour, the white light from her screen hurts her eyes.
Her schedule changes depending on what classes she has. On her "A Day" schedule, she's in three back-to-back, 80-minute classes—a format that gives her a headache by the end of the day. On her "B Day" schedule, her teachers usually let students go after 40 minutes. Her breaks are five minutes, which is enough time to go to the bathroom or eat a quick snack. In the afternoon, her day at ECA starts at 2:30 p.m. and ends at 4 p.m. By the time she's done, it's dark outside.
"It can be a lot," she said. "It can be hard ... I feel like I'm doing the best I can. It's not like I have younger siblings running around. It's mostly just, like, trying to pay attention to the computer is just what puts me into school."
Ella said that remote school is harder than she thought it would be. It feels like teachers assign more work, she said. Often, her friends keep their cameras off, meaning that she can't see or talk to them until school is over for the day. At home, her sole companion is a dog named Bosco. She said she'd like it better if all of her teachers stayed within a recommended time limit.
"My brain hurts," she said. "My eyes hurt. It's not only that we have to be online for school, but that's also how we see our friends now. That's how we have our personal time, to work on personal projects online or just watch T.V. And we have four classes back to back."
She said that it's also stressful for her to feel so severed from her school environment. When a Google Hangouts call ends, she's back in her house instead of the classroom or school hallway. She can't stay behind to ask a teacher questions. She can't do labs in class. She doesn't feel like her classmates participate as much as they did in person.
She misses her friends, although she's been able to see them outside, doing park cleanup for her community service hours. And—even though "I know some people can hate on the school lunches"—she also misses getting warm, pre-made lunches at school.
She added the pandemic has made her think deeply about the role of privilege plays in her life. At home, schoolwork is her only focus. She said she hasn't been personally affected by COVID-19 when so many have. While she didn't think she would long for the physical classroom, she now does.
"At the beginning of this, we were all like 'oooh, remote learning,'" she recalled. "It seemed like it would be better and a lot more relaxed. The second half of last year was a lot more relaxed, because teachers didn't know what they were doing. And that was nice, because we got to chill out for a bit. At least I did. Now, it's been so long that I sort of forget how I work in that environment."