Give students and teachers a one-week break

This is a direct plea to all educational institutions that are currently conducting their online classes: Let the students, teachers, and professors take a break for one week.

It is commendable for these institutions to continue fulfilling their mission of educating students amid the pandemic. Teachers and professors are doing their best to write modules, record lectures, search for educational resources, and teach their students despite the ban on conducting face-to-face classes. I am grateful to my professors who are working hard to educate us in the most constructive way possible. Each of them has their own style of teaching: recording lectures on PowerPoint presentations, typing 8-13 pages of materials for us to peruse, providing plentiful online resources, or using the synchronous sessions to effectively teach a foreign language.

But we must face the fact that this newly evolved style of learning is more exhaustive than the traditional one.

As many students would testify, the required activities and projects to be submitted have tripled. Juggle that with household responsibilities, and our physical and mental capacities are constantly drained. This is the premise of the call of some student councils for their respective school administrations to suspend online classes for a week.

Mapua University has acceded to such a request/resolution by its academic council, announcing on Sept. 22: “No online classes for college students to give time for the students and faculty members to rest and destress from the adjustments brought about by the ongoing pandemic.”

In contrast, the University of the East’s college president thumbed down the council’s request to suspend online classes, because “it will result to more difficulty on the part of students since whatever is missed if ever cancellation is allowed will be added to the topics already set in the syllabi.”

My fellow students and I hope school boards and administrations will consider giving students and teachers some days off—just a week to rest our fatigued minds and bodies. Being in the comfort of our own homes does not automatically mean we are learning in a relaxed way.

Eduelle Jan T. Macababbad
UST Freshman
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