Distance lessons, empty classrooms, no meetings with classmates – everyday school life in the corona lockdown is so very different from normal. Home schooling is not only a challenge for the lower grades and their parents. High school students also learn under very special conditions.
As in the weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays, compulsory attendance at schools will be suspended until at least the end of this month. Regular operation is once again not possible due to Corona. On request, city school spokesman Stergios Svolos, himself a twelve-year student at Landgraf-Ludwigs-Gymnasium, reports on how distance teaching is received by students in the upper grades, which problems and worries it causes them to represent his generation.
As different as the regulations for the individual grades are, the distance teaching is also handled differently at various schools. At the Liebigschule, for example, after alternating lessons in autumn, distance learning for high school students is now again mainly taking place via the Classroom online platform. Tasks can be set and edited here. Virtual meetings, in which teachers and students can see each other on the screen, are held in exceptional cases via platforms such as Zoom. E-mails and WhatsApp are also used for uncomplicated and reliable contact between students and teachers.
Maintaining contact also possible digitally
At the LLG, teachers and students have experienced alternating lessons with divided classes for some time, and in lockdown they are now in contact again via the IServ platform. Here the lessons take place virtually online. “I have already received the first message that my presentation planned for Monday has to take place online,” reports Svolos. He himself is happy to have the technical prerequisites and the necessary know-how, but worries about students from lower grades or with poorer qualifications – either because they are not technically well equipped or because they do not have the necessary peace and quiet in their home and find support. “If I have to share my room with someone, how should education succeed?”, Says the 18-year-old and calls for more care offers for students under similarly difficult learning conditions.
Svolos is optimistic, however, that distance teaching generally works better in the current lockdown than in the first one in spring. After all, students and teachers had to improvise a lot at the beginning of the pandemic (“the schools were taken by surprise”), but sources of error are now known. Corona also advanced digitization. The contact between teachers and students is good even under these circumstances. “But lessons don’t just consist of learning, it’s also an exchange,” emphasizes the twelfth grader. “And school is also a feeling of community.” And that’s missing in lockdown. Just as much that was possible in earlier years: internships, a school year abroad or the like. Svolos himself experienced it: He had arranged an internship in Ireland and a student exchange with China. Both could not take place because of Corona.
responsibility
“extrem cool”
The city school spokesman thinks that he has more personal responsibility in distance teaching, in turn “extremely cool”. Writing essays, researching things, working on learning material on your own is so exhausting, but the learning effect is all the greater. And pressure to perform is only relieved when teachers reassured the students that they can cope with the tasks.
When asked whether he was afraid that the current upper school classes might have a disadvantage as Corona class with a less informative Corona Abitur, he replied “absolutely”. His generation already feared that it might suddenly be “this is the Corona vintage”. But he is counting on everyone – teachers, students and parents – taking responsibility together and showing understanding so that education can succeed.
For all final exams that are due this year, especially the Abitur, according to the Hessian Ministry of Culture, it is guaranteed that only those learning contents are subject to the examination that were actually taught. Class work, written exams and other exams do not take place during distance learning with the exception of those that cannot be postponed for school qualifications this year. This means that the written performance assessments scheduled for January that are relevant for the grades in the final certificates (e.g. exams in Q1 and Q3, which are included in the Abi grade) can be written from today, Monday, in the presence of the School taking into account the distance and hygiene rules. Alternatively, substitute payments are possible. Class work and exams in the other grades (from grade 7) are not required, but can be compensated for by substitute work.
Those: Giessen General
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