Written by Michelle Huang, interviews by Annabella Zhang, Jianing Zhou, Humphrey Zhao, Keely Boyle, Emerald Jiang, and Abigail Chang

A week before Spring Break, our Pudong campus returned to distance learning–a thing of the past, we all thought, reserved for only hurricane threats and whatever 2020 was. Just last week, we were informed that distance learning will extend until the end of the 2021-2022 school year. 

Unlike whatever 2020 was, however, this year’s distance learning comes with harsher restrictions: some compounds face total lockdown, and residents are banned from stepping outside their doors unless during mandatory NAT tests. The tests first require buildings or regions of houses cleared of its inhabitants at staggered times throughout the day; the inhabitants are then filed into lines leading to stations somewhere in the compound; and finally, teams of volunteers and medical staff are suited up in puffy white protective gear and take swab samples from the throats of each resident. The cotton swabs of five to ten people are then submerged in a tube of solution, to be later tested for pathogenic organisms indicative of the COVID virus. Compound lockdowns also mean halted food delivery and grocery runs, leaving students and their families either forced to invent new recipes of strange food combinations or dependent on meals of cabbage and rice until the next box of state-subsidised groceries arrive. 

The Pudong Press staff interviewed a range of students and teachers on their thoughts of their lives during distance learning.

Many students saw the first week of distance learning as novel and interesting. However, as students continued to attend school online and take NAT tests at odd times of the day, the novelty wore off. “All that time cooped up with the screen became scale,” says one student. After the new ban on leaving the compound, another reported feeling like they were “drowning” as they couldn’t leave their home for fresh air unless they had to do NAT testing. Students also reported disliking the strain on their eyes as both synchronous and asynchronous times with different classes require them to be in front of their computer screens. The performing arts classes had to change how their synchronous classes would look like. Ms Fletcher, a middle and high school dance teacher, says that dance was one of the hardest subjects to teach online. Students can also testify to the awkwardness of uploading video assignments for their P.E, music, or other performing arts classes. 

As for the benefits of distance learning, Ms Ballon, a French and English teacher for high school students, noted how working remotely has given her more time to conduct baking projects in her spare time. Students note how the additional time carved out of what would usually be time spent commuting to and from school has given them more time to sleep. “Previously, my bedtime was from 10:30PM to 6:00AM. Now it has extended from 10:30PM to 8:00AM,” says a sophomore. A loneliness from the second week of distance learning faded into a neutral indifference by the third, says another. What some students also found helpful were the opportunities granted by distance learning to contact teachers for extra help, whether it was during online extended learning periods or private Teams messages.

With a few weeks until the end of the school year, a restlessness and exhaustion accompany each new weekday spent online, but also a hopefulness for lockdown restrictions to lighten soon.