Let's be honest here and hold up. I know for a fact that from experience that more than half the class had
their ears somewhere up in dreamland and not on the online classes that were temperature conducted last
year due to stage 4 Lockdown. We will either sitting or lying in our bed, enjoying the comfort of a spring
mattress we could never receive in school, or lazing around on a padded couch or chair, far from any
form of supervision and near all the distractions we could think off.
With a few clicks or Swipes, from hearing about persuasive techniques in English, we could be catching
up on the latest shows on Netflix, or head shotting some enemies on your favourite FPS game, or even just
mute the teacher for a short nap to Lala land. Once again let's be honest and fair, online schooling has
kept us more distracted than productive than we are in our daily day to day onsite classes. However, the
influences of online schooling and distractions can pose as a larger threat to our mental health and wellbeing education, overall proving that online school is an unhealthy form of learning to students.
Isn't its boring staying at home staring at a laptop or phone for almost 7 hours a day without social
interactions from friends that you see face-to-face 5 days a week? " zoom fatigue ", a new term coined
from this era of online schooling, refers to the feeling of extreme exhaustion after hours of tireless classes.
During an online class, it is difficult for the students to decipher all the information and reply with
correct answers using knowledge due to the fatigue of both brain and body that makes it hard to process
information at an average level. Facing the screen for a prolonged time is proved to be mentally draining
and physically tiring.
In addition to this, timelines of online school are not coherent of that which onsite school follows.
Separating home life, a class time and not following their regular routine allows students to procrastinate
and set aside were, causing deadlines to be Missed. Therefore, the effects of online school can put students
at a disadvantage on both education and mental health. According to an Australian Educational Survey
conducted in October 2019, overall 56% of teachers reported that students have been handing in
significantly less work than the normal standard that they did on-site school and only 30% said that their
students have been prepared for the lesson. So where has the rest 70% disappeared off to? Moreover,
while most students are able to access their technology and broadband devices freely, not all families are
able to feel the same privilege.
For some children, learning online will be a little more than an inconvenience. For others however, this
will further magnify their learning disadvantage. Only 68% of Australian children aged 5 to 14 living in
disadvantaged communities have internet access at home, compared to 91% of students living in
advantaged communities. Students who have unlimited broadband internet at home might do just fine in
this new situation. But students living remotely whose internet is intermittent and not fast or reliable
enough to cope with online learning, and those in large families sharing limited digital devices, may get
left behind. When you add in additional family stress like parents facing sudden unemployment, extra
anxiety and little experience supporting their children’s learning, the educational outcomes for
vulnerable children will almost certainly go backwards. However, some may suggest that when online
schooling commences, students may have more time to spend on their work, resulting in the excelling of
grades and scores.
However, the issue with this argument is that the students with this extra time may also use it to be
distracted and refuse to do work. Due to the removal of any authority supervising the student, they may
also feel the loss of motivation to finish any work and procrastinate until a few hours before the deadline.
Hence, this argument can be deemed invalid as it overlooks the other possibilities that the student could
spend their time on.