Ever since the Coronavirus hit Illinois, it has forced high schools to shut down and make students go to remote learning to start off the year but students are pushing to go back to hybrid learning.

Illinois high school students are having to start off the year online and are used to starting off going into in-person learning but instead are having to start online due to the coronavirus outbreak. 

Some students don’t like having to stay inside and start the school year online and not going to in-person classes and I think that Illinois high schools should start to reopen up their schools to in-person classes. 

“I can focus better if I’m actually in the class,” PHS senior student Mikey Wagner said. “It feels normal to me being in the classroom.”

By going remote, students are easily distracted by staying in their own homes. Students don’t focus as much as they did when they were at in-person classes. But now since students are stuck at home in quarantine, they are forced to try and focus even though it’s really hard for them to do that when they are at home and can be easily distracted by almost anything rather than being at school and in a classroom where their attention is only toward the lesson and they are not distracted as much as they would be at home.

“It helps keep me less distracted and focused,” PHS senior student Nick Nowak said. “When I’m at home, it’s really easy to just not pay attention when I don’t really have a choice to go back to in-person.” 

Another thing students are missing out on by going remote instead of hybrid is the face to face interaction with their peers. When students were in-person, they got to interact with their peers face to face and got to spend more time with their friends. Now students really don’t get the opportunity to interact with other peers. They can see each other face to face but on a computer screen and not directly looking at each other like they would at in-person school. Students are missing chances to actually try and connect with their peers because they are restricted to just seeing them on their computer screens and not face to face.

However, some students are supporting the remote learning initiative over going back to hybrid learning. Students have a lot more time to do their work and not have to be rushed to finish their assignments. They also think that teachers don’t pressure them like how they would at in-person school to finish their work in a class period.

“With remote learning, I have a lot more time to do my work,” Naperville North senior student Niles Tyschper said. “I don’t have to worry about teachers pressuring me to get my work done during a class period.”

While some students would prefer to stay remote and not go back to hybrid learning, I would disagree with them. I believe that hybrid learning has way more benefits than remote learning does.

Illinois high school students should be pushing to go back to hybrid learning because they don’t feel like they have to be stuck at home sitting on a computer screen doing lessons when they could go back to the way it was before the coronavirus pandemic was a global panic.