Max Meyers on Remote Learning and Life as a Galloway Senior During COVID-19 Pandemic

Senior year is always a strange time for any student. With the anticipation of a new chapter in life and the celebration of several years of hard work and accomplishments, it is an overwhelming, bittersweet experience which for many people houses dozens of lifelong memories. From college applications and senioritis to the joyful milestones of prom and graduation, it’s a year unlike any other time in the American life experience.

For the class of 2020, senior year has certainly been a strange time, but for very, very different reasons.

With the sudden COVID-19 outbreak causing schools across the nation to close prematurely, this year’s graduating class completed their final day of high school without even knowing it at the time. Traditions such as prom and graduation simply are not happening, and without proper closure before leaving their high school communities for good, seniors everywhere are currently facing an unprecedented mental and emotional challenge. For a thoughtful perspective on the impacts of the pandemic on Galloway School seniors, we spoke with Student Association vice-president Max Meyers to ask a handful of questions about his own observations and personal experiences with remote learning and its various trials.

How have you been dealing with the situation?

For the most part, I’ve been doing, like, pretty good mentally. I think academically, it's a little bit harder than normal school. I think with the system that we’re doing with online school, it works but it's a huge difference between going to school for like seven hours and being able to have breaks, to see a bunch of people you can talk to, to be like moving around and stuff vs. like sitting in your room at your desk for seven hours. So, the academic part is sometimes kinda tough, but for the most part I’ve been doing pretty good, just kinda taking it day by day and also enjoying some of the extra free time when I get it.

What parts of this are most difficult for you as a senior?

I think as a senior, the hardest thing is that… to put it in this way, as a senior class we’ve been going to school for, like 12, 15, years, or something like that, and for what's arguably the best part of that experience is sort of either different or not happening anymore, and a lot of these things that have been like building up and we’ve been really excited for are either not happening anymore or being reimagined. So that’s just a little upsetting. I don't know, I’m trying to stay positive about it but, occasionally I’m like, dang this kinda sucks that all these cool things and a bunch of these memories that are super important in people's lives might not be happening anymore.

What are your thoughts on “continuous learning”?

I think one of the hard things is that some classes will give you the daily homework [along with] long term assignments that are due either later on in the week or later on in the month. While it's like a long term assignment...once you’ve done all your daily assignments, which a lot of times have you working until the 7pm deadline...after working that hard and not moving at all from your desk, it's hard to…stay in the mentality of, “Oh yeah, now I wanna do a bunch of this work that’s not due for a while.” And I think it's kinda hard to balance the long term work on top of the present work that needs to be done, so that’s kind of tough. With school it's a little different, because, sure, we get carved-out breaks at home, but I feel like having carved-out breaks at school, where you can like talk to people, where you can move around, walk around, and be in an environment with others, sort of gives you a better break than when you're at home and sort of have to come up with the motivation on your own all the time. So, I think it's a lot harder at home to do your normal day stuff and then have to do a bunch of long-term stuff after. … I feel like in typical school, it's learn the content in school and practice it at home, but with this new system it's sort of flipping that around to where we do the learning at home [individually], and the zoom calls are sort of to catch up and talk about it. It sometimes makes it a little harder…cause again there's that thing with the motivation where sometimes it's hard to stay focused or learn at home, so I think that's like another challenging part of it. ...There's something about being in a physical school and around others that . . . builds a much better space to be wanting and willing to do your work, which I think is a challenge of online school, especially when we're all like at home and not able to go places to get our minds [off] of things too. I feel like if this were just online school and life carried on as normal, it would be a little better, cause we would have times to like go out and do things, or see friends, or see the world and to not be confined inside.

What are the positive things that have come out of this experience for you?

While online school is time consuming, I still generally have more free time and more time in general to be doing what I want. Like I’ve been able to either go deeper into passions I have, or I’ve been able to pick up or touch things that have always been on my [to do] list. So, I think one of the good things about this is just being able to have more time to do things that I want, which is good, cause I feel like this is a good time for people to take time for themselves too, and just sort of do all these things that they want to do. And, I kinda think also, it's weird to phrase it like this, but I feel like being disconnected from the world is in a way making people more connected. It’s not always [the case], but I feel like because we're living in a time where technology and communication are very present and very widely used, [quarantine] is bringing us closer through technology, and to be able to talk to people more, text people more, and game with people more . . . I don't know. That's just another positive thing that comes out of it. Self time and self improvement, while also being able to connect with people more, even if it's digital.

How do you feel the grade’s morale is as a whole? 

I think a big thing that I can sense is that we’re all just kind of . . . upset about senior year being in the dumps, and I think on top of senioritis and most of us knowing where we’re going to college, having this huge, almost crippling global pandemic … I feel like for a lot of us it's just hard to look forward to things. … Sure there’s college and stuff, but I think as for finishing out senior year it's hard to be like, “I want to do my school work”, because a lot of the motivation before came from [having] graduation and all of these senior things to look forward to. And I think right now, the class is just struggling with wanting to do stuff [together]… but we gotta take it day-by-day, I guess.