4/3/20 – It has been 3 weeks since school closed because of the coronavirus outbreak. My teacher, Mrs. Bierman, has been posting assignments and homework through Google Classroom and Konstella. For the past 3 weeks, I’ve stayed at home and never left the safety of my house. The number of people with the virus is growing by thousands each day. Every day, the growth of people who get the disease multiplies. I can’t risk going near anybody, and I am not leaving the house.
Only my mom has left the house to go shopping, and she put on gloves and masks, and immediately changes and bath when she comes home. My state announced that all schools will be closed for this school year. My science camp, a 4 day camping trip with all the 6th graders, is cancelled, as well as the end-of-the-year graduation pool party, and my graduation ceremony! Since we can’t go to school, my teacher thinks we’ll have a few days in summer when we can go back to school to get all the supplies. I have many projects and artwork that I want to get back.
Next year, I’m going to Hopkins, and the math class I get into depends on the math placement test. However, because there is no school, the math placement test has to be taken at home online. It’s scary because we have to continue our studies online, and we can’t leave at all because it’s too risky. Staying at home is suffocating, although I still get to run around in my backyard. My sister and I go outside everyday to have “recess”, and we scooter around the pool and swing on the swing. When it gets warmer, I hope to be able to relax in the swimming pool.
Everyone has been adjusting to online school, and my class had a Zoom meeting today. The teacher assigned us work earlier today, to print out and do or complete on binder paper. She sends out an answer key and we correct out work, then send it to her. My teacher assigns us lessons in our textbooks to read, and in today’s Zoom meeting, she asked our comfort level on the math work.
The meeting was mainly about answering questions such as “Can we have a pool party in the summer to make up for the lost one?” or “How will we do Star of the Week?” Star of the Week is where a different person every week is the Star of the Week, and has to do a poster and present. Then everybody writes a letter to the star, and the teacher makes a booklet for everybody out of the letters. I’m one of the few who haven’t done it yet, so I will have to pick the poster up at school.
It’s very dangerous to be around other people because they might have the virus without knowing, because when a person contracts the virus, it’ll take 2-14 days for symptoms to occur. The 2-14 days where they have no idea they have the virus means they might get close to other people. The virus will spread even though symptoms haven’t occurred in that person. It’s so much harder to do online school, to have to scan everything and send it to the teacher online. My teacher is also having a hard time, getting piles and piles of unorganized work because everybody turns it in at different times.
All the different work is being sent to her, and she said it’s as if someone took all her piles of neatened work and threw it up in the air. As the teacher answered questions, I worked on my weaving on my tabletop loom. My friend’s birthday already passed, and I still haven’t gotten her a gift. I think I’m just going to get her a online gift card.
Submitted by Angel Li, Santa Clara County – Fremont.