Shayna Sharma | April 30, 2021
This is the second edition of a two-part series of interviews with the Woodlands' Student Activity Council's Grade Representatives. This edition comes with the grade 9 and 10 students. To take a look at our grade 11 and 12 interview, check out this link.
The Student Activity Council plays a huge role at The Woodlands. However, COVID-19 and distance learning have greatly affected the way SAC has run this year. To gain an insight into this and some other interesting topics, The Woodstock spoke with the SAC’s Grade Representatives (often known as “grade reps”). In this edition, we speak with Grade 9 and 10 SAC representatives Arryan Rao and Jahkim Brown-Roopnarine. As student leaders in our school community,, they are in the position to offer unique perspectives on everything affecting students this year. We had the opportunity to interview both of them together to find out what it’s like to be in their shoes during these interesting times.
Without further ado, here is our conversation:
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Q: How would you describe your overall experience with quarantine and distance learning so far?
Arryan: So I'm going to outright say, I definitely don't like it. I know for distance learning, certain things need to be done for the general safety of the public, but I just don't like it. One of the greatest things about high school is supposed to be how you get to meet friends, ones that will stay with you for a while. It's supposed to be a completely different learning experience from my elementary and middle school. Unfortunately, we don't have that this year. We have to rely on the social connections that we had before high school, because the only ways you can make new friends, through classes and clubs, has been severely impacted. Though it may make me sound like an irresponsible student, it's hard to stay on task, especially, because you have the whole internet at your fingertips. So this learning is just not optimal. That's what I'd say.
Jahkim: Yeah, I think to build off Arryan's point regarding social connections, I feel like it's a lot harder, especially in grade nine, because a lot of the friendships I've had this year, I wouldn't have had unless I had the opportunity to meet new people in different clubs and classes and just being able to see people in the hallway. I think that's a big aspect of school. Like Arryan has mentioned, the point of school is strictly school based now. You go to your classes to learn, and that's all. There's no form of social interaction or community, which school used to bolster before. A large part of school was going to school and enjoying yourself, because not only are you seeing your friends, but you're communicating. There's that sense of community where everybody's participating in the system to be a part of it. [With online learning,] you begin to miss out on the whole experience of what learning together in a school environment is like, and I think that's really the biggest issue with the whole distance learning experience. Obviously, there's the struggle of teaching kids online, like Arryan said, staying on task and such, but even larger than that is the absence of that level of community and interaction.
Q: Would you say that you found it hard to adapt to the online learning system?
Arryan: So in terms of adapting, it's now becoming normal for me, but I'd still choose in-person school over it any day. In-person school is always going to be the norm for me, so I just say that I've adapted to online school acknowledging that it's there, but I still don't want it to be there, if that makes sense.
Jahkim: I think that's a fair point. Of course, you have to learn to make do with the systems that are available, since there's not much anybody can do about it. It's just the way it is. You still have to go to class, even though in grade nine and ten, if you're being honest, it's not the most important thing to get good grades. Still, you want to learn, and you still want to take part. It becomes a lot harder though, because there are no intangible effects that could keep you engaged. It's entirely on the student to stay responsible, which is a lot more difficult.
In these grades there's more stress on learning rather than obtaining good grades, as you're building up your understanding of fundamental concepts that assist you later on in high school. Now we're forced into a system where we have to still acquire those with the same lack of motivation that we had before, but now it's entirely our responsibility to do well. If you're not motivated in person to do anything, now when you're online and you're the only person watching yourself, you still have to maintain concentration which is difficult.
Q: Are there any lessons you've learned this year or anything that you think could positively affect you in the future?
Arryan: It's definitely easier to network with friends now. Previously, to meet up with friends, you would have to coordinate schedules with everyone, but now, suppose I want to contact my friends, I can do it anytime through a group chat call. Everyone can pick up wherever they are, and it's more convenient as everyone can sit at home and then relax. On the contrary, in-person, sure meeting up is more fun, but it's harder to schedule everything. Also, I'd say that accessibility to a lot of features is easier online, since you're at home.
Jahkim: Distance learning is obviously hard, for aspects such as a lack of motivation, but then I feel like you can improve time management skills, because now teachers are also trying to cram a four-month course in such a short timeframe. It's a lot more work, and there's no aspect of socialization. That's a big thing, but our ability to manage time is benefitting.
Also, you have the chance to network and take the time to see what's important to you in your life and see what you need to go on throughout your day. Like, now you can network and communicate with people who you actually want to keep in touch with. You're not obligated to communicate, reach out to any of your friends or be a part of a community or social system. You can be a recluse, if that's what you want. You have to see what's most important to you to make that choice. We start to establish a much better sense of what's important to us in our daily life because it's not like it's fed to us regularly. It would have to be something that you actively have to make a decision to look out for, you know?
Q: Do you have any messages or words of encouragement that you would like to say to your fellow students who might be experiencing these same difficulties during these times?
Arryan: Honestly, I would just say focus on your work. I know that's advice to everyone, including myself, but focus on your work. Make sure you actually pay attention during lessons, even though it's really hard to, and because it's so much easier to talk to your friends now, just do it. It makes a lot of stuff better, because you have people to talk to. If they're in your classes, you can ask them for help, and that way you can make sure you're not alone.
Jahkim: Yeah, I would second the message of making sure you're not alone, looking out for each other, and just being connected. The biggest problem with the discipline thing is being connected. Also, it's important that we recognize that the students' circumstances are not optimal, something I think teachers have also recognized. The circumstances suck. Teachers don't want to teach like this. Students don't want to learn like this. I think you should approach it with a mindset that this isn't something that anybody really wants to be doing and that it's something that you just have to do. You have to be realistic, even though it's hard to stay optimistic as well. Teachers recognize these circumstances, but you still have to, as Arryan said, you just have to keep with it. I think the way to do that is to make sure you stay connected, because it's hard to get through this by yourself.
Q: From your experience, how has the pandemic and the switch to distance learning affected SAC?
Arryan: I've only been here one year, but it's evident to me that there was a lot more participation previously. For example, suppose you want to organize a movie watch, most people have streaming services at home and so they'll just watch the movie themselves.
With in person events, there's the advantage of being able to hang out with your friends, but it's harder to do that online, since you have to make sure you're in the same room with them that you're all online at the same time. The most important part of an event is participation, and that has been affected. So it's a pretty big effect.
Jahkim: I learned a lot from being a grade rep last year and this year, but I think fundamentally, it's important when you're a part of SAC to recognize that as SAC stands for the student activity council, not only is it responsible for activity - like organizing school wide events, maintaining school spirit, and getting everybody together - but that activity is twofold. It comes down to gauging the interest, the ideas, and the opinions of the entire school community, and creating avenues for them to communicate their needs and their wants in the school and actually fulfilling them, becoming an efficient student body in that sense. SAC's responsibility is not only to hold these events, but by holding these events is to also establish a sort of infrastructure to get people's perspectives. In real life, that's hard enough as it is to get people to feel a part of a school community. There was a lot more participation last year, but still, that's always going to be a struggle of the student council to get people to feel involved. Ultimately, people have other things to do, and there's a certain culture where students don't feel included a lot of the time as sometimes they don't feel like they can be a part of it. Online, it's really hard to get people a part of it and also to gauge the level of student activity and develop that connectivity, because at the end of the day, again, the problem with distance learning is that it is an attack on networking and community. I think SAC has a whole lot of boundaries that we have to overcome and a lot more of a challenge in that sense. It's very hard to get everybody to feel like a part of a community and to get everybody active. At the end of the day, it's something that we have to learn to deal with.
Q: Do you think virtual events could be something that stick around in the future, post COVID, or do you think that it's just something that we're doing right now, because it is the best alternative?
Arryan: So I'd say that some events absolutely have to be virtual, like the gaming tournament that we did. Since a lot of people showed interest in that, I think we could do it again in the future, and that it would be a virtual event that would stick around.
Jahkim: Yeah, I feel like virtual events provide a pretty interesting avenue of interaction, because you're not required to be nearly as social as you would have to be in real life. Honestly, I do think that in-person school events are much better for bonding, and building that community to achieve those two goals of activity in SAC. I still think there's a lot of benefits we've seen from these virtual events, like gaming tournaments and the grade rep events that we had for each grade. So little one-off events could be cool in conjunction with the events in real life, but I think there should be more stress on those events in real life, because it provides a unique avenue and expands saturation in that sense too. Ultimately, some students might not want to take part in events in real life and may prefer to take part in events virtually, and maybe there are students who enjoy both. So I feel like at the end of the day, it can't hurt, especially if there's going to be an overlap which would result in more participation.
Q: What is your vision for the rest of the school year as grade rep? What do you hope to accomplish?
Arryan: I just hope that people look back on grade nine and think that, even though it was a hard year, at least the school events were nice. I also hope that people actually enjoy the events that we come up with, especially since, as a great rep, I'm supposed to create events that people want to participate in. I want people to actually like this year because of the school events, that's what I want to accomplish.
Jahkim: Yeah, I'm going to second what Arryan said a little bit. A grade rep's responsibility is to provide avenues for your grade to have a sense of communication, with not only you, the representative of the student body, but also the student council. We have to communicate the ideas of our grade and represent the school population in these meetings. I think it's especially hard online to represent the people in our school, and not only give them events that they want, but also build a memorable, long lasting community. It's important to be active in the student body to get a sense for their ideas, not only when it comes to what they enjoy doing, but also to concerns about things that might not always be related to having fun at school. I think where I fit into that this year is trying to gain experience, trying to learn about how to navigate through these interesting times, and learning to do both of these forms of activity to apply in future years. I think the main thing this year is that we should be treating it as a learning opportunity to go forward and address building that school community and providing those avenues for our student body to communicate and thrive. SAC does a pretty good job of that now, but obviously, we can still improve that.
Q: In a way, grade nines have been affected more than anybody in our school community. By these new circumstances, as you guys have had to enter a new stage of your lives as high schoolers, what impact would you say this has had on your transition to high school? Also what recommendations do you have for other grade nines as far as making this transition?
Arryan: The biggest impact is not achieving the full high school experience, like I won't be able to eat in the cafeteria, go out for lunch with my friends, and I won't be able to know what locker bay is my favorite since I've never seen a locker before. I've never gotten the experience of walking in high school. So it's just the whole aspect of high school, everything I was looking forward to, because online schooling can only match up to school in real life to a certain point. You can have online clubs, but they're never going to be the same as the in-person interaction. You can have online events, but they're never going to match up to the fun that you have in-person. I was impacted significantly, and I'm sure everyone in grade nine was impacted by virtual learning because we don't know what it's like to be a normal student at Woodlands. And hopefully we'll get that in the future. We've kind of lost these experiences for our grade nine year.
In terms of advice, make sure you stay connected. Don't be alone and make sure you pay attention in classes because the teachers are doing their best too. It's important to respect that and just try to make do with everything because it's all going to go away soon.
Speaking with Jahkim and Arryan gave me great insight into their experiences as students and grade representatives this year. I found their authenticity on the struggles of distance learning to be refreshing, and their optimism for the coming months inspiring. If there was one big takeaway for me from this interview, it was seeing the amazing amount of passion Jahkim and Arryan both have when it comes to the well-being of our school and its students. Their continued dedication to supporting their fellow students and developing a sense of community among us all is truly an indication of how challenging times can bring people together.
Thank you to Arryan and Jahkim, as well as Julia and Geffrey, for taking part in these incredible interviews. It has been an enlightening experience for us at the Woodstock and hopefully our readers can say the same.
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