Thoughts on navigating Grade 12 during a pandemic
Student trustees are seeing online learning from dual perspectives
Ahona Mehdi was supposed to be getting ready for prom.
Instead, she spent Wednesday talking to The Spectator about online learning.
As Hamilton students adjust to their “new normal” amid the pandemic, two teens with unique perspectives, Mehdi and Cameron Prosic, both Grade 12 students and student trustees with the HamiltonWentworth District School Board, share their opinions on virtual learning, their peers’ concerns about “consistency” and their own now-disrupted plans for the future.
“It’s going OK,” said Mehdi when asked how at-home learning has been.
The Westmount Secondary School student says she’s a selfdirected learner, easily able to adapt and get her school work done independently. But she knows that’s not the case for all.
“A few of my friends … they’re having trouble focusing on doing work at home,” she said. “Some students are really enjoying it and thriving, but others are struggling.”
Feedback she’s hearing from students across the board: they want consistency.
Students tell her they want a reasonable workload from each of their various teachers and they want it to stay consistent week-to-week. They don’t want to be swamped with math homework one week and feel like they’re breezing by the next.
They also want regular video conferencing and check-ins from their teachers.
Really, they want anything that feels like a return to “normal,” Mehdi said.
“With everything that’s going on, the days are a blur and it’s important to have that structure in our lives,” Mehdi said. Routine not only helps students set and achieve goals, it helps them manage mental health, she said.
Prosic, a student trustee and Grade 12 student at Bernie Custis Secondary School, is hearing similar feedback.
“Students want it more organized the across board,” he said, referring mainly to the different online tools teachers are using. Some upload lessons on YouTube, others work via online portals.
“It gets kind of chaotic,” Prosic said. “It’s a lot to manage.”
Both school boards, Catholic and public, want to know what’s working and what’s not. The boards are gathering feedback about online learning from students, parents and community members via the ThoughtExchange crowdsourcing tool.
Early feedback from parents in the public board shows they want consistency too.
“Differences in how often teachers engage students and how much work they assign becomes a problem in households with multiple students or when students compare experiences with their friends,” reads a feedback summary on the board’s website. “Structure in terms of weekly expectations laid out in advance, posted on the same day, would help families to plan ahead.”
Mehdi said this feedback will help guide the board in its future distance learning decisionmaking.
Grade 12s in particular are facing uncertain futures.
Mehdi was supposed to head to the University of Ottawa in the fall. Now, she’ll stay home and take the classes online. Prosic, accepted at McMaster, will also take classes online. Grief is a common theme among them.
Both Prosic and Mehdi spoke of sadness at the loss their proms, graduation ceremonies and other events. They’re all cancelled or on hold.
“These are milestones in students’ lives,” Prosic said.
He was most looking forward Bernie Custis’s inaugural talent show in Gage Park. It was to become an annual tradition.
They and their peers are coming to terms with their losses, gaining perspective along the way.
“It’s a bit of a sad thing,” Mehdi said. “But it’s OK, considering that we are all safe and all healthy.”
Katrina Clarke is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: katrinaclarke@thespec.com