The picture above is a scene we are all very familiar with at this point. We roll out of bed, don’t eat
breakfast, and then, at 8:00 am, we plop down in front of the computer for the next two and a half
hours. What used to be strange and new is now becoming an integral part of our lives.
Apps like Zoom and Google Meet have risen from relative anonymity to a sort of celebrity
status. So much has changed so quickly over the past year that it feels like there has been very little
room to reflect on these changes. This article aims to remedy that slightly and to analyze whether
online school or in-person instruction is more conducive for a healthy learning environment. To do
this, we will take a deeper look at the academic and social factors at play.
From a superficial perspective, a lot has changed academically. We went from physically being
in school from 8:00 to 2:45 each day to sitting in front of an iPad or computer from 8:00 to 2:20, but
the real question is, has the effectiveness of school changed?
Maxwell Perdu, ‘23, when asked how online school has affected him academically, said, “ I
don’t think it has affected me academically per se.”
This viewpoint is consistent with research that has been done on the subject.
A study conducted by Marc Snyder of Ave Maria University in Florida found that students
who were homeschooled did not show a significant increase or decrease in measures such as average
SAT, ACT, and GPA during their freshman year of college when compared to students who received
in-person instruction.
However, one aspect of this statistic is that we don’t know is how long the homeschooled
students received online instruction. It’s possible that this could change if the students studied were at