Students and Teachers Opinions on Being Back in School
Left to Right: Kim Simmons, Kim Koppenhafer, Erika Fuller, Julie Duquette, and Kena Nelms pose for a photo in the office.
October 1, 2021
Many people have their own opinions on school, which includes online school and in-person school. There are a lot of key factors to why people like and dislike school. After going around Sam Barlow high school and interviewing a few students and teachers to get their opinions on how they feel about school, now that we are not doing school online. Personally, in-person school is great for my mental health, but at the same time it is very stressful. I am a Sophomore at Barlow, and going back to school, I didn’t think it would be this crazy the first week. I’m glad we are back in person because it is nice to feel like things can go back to normal and we have something to do throughout the day instead of staying home and sitting behind a screen. Although, I am scared for my health and not knowing what COVID can do to my health after being around people, it’s scary. There are a lot of unknowns regarding the pandemic, resulting in trying methods that may fail and forced distance learning again, but we’re all learning together.
After interviewing some teachers and students to get their opinions on being back in school, I got a collective result. Mr. Nelson, an amazing English teacher, mentions he is glad to be back in person. Nelson stated, “Yes, I am. There is a profound and deeply important difference between interacting with humans online and in-person. I know this sounds cliche, but it’s true. Human-to-human in-person social contact is superior to online contact like watching a band play live is superior to listening to a bad Youtube recording of a show recorded on someone’s smartphone.” We went on to talk about his opinion on wearing masks. “I will be diplomatic here: I find them uncomfortable. I also miss seeing people’s faces. It’s weird and awkward not to be able to communicate fully. In my dream world, I would make them voluntary. But, as they say, ‘He who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know,’ so I could be wrong.” When asking him on a scale from 1-10 his rating on being back in school, he gave an 8.
