American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults
Future Reflections Winter 2023 GROWING UP
Learning In Real Time
by Sydney Mattinson
From the Editor: The COVID-19 lockdown profoundly affected a generation of students, both sighted and blind. Sydney Mattinson is a former participant in Illinois' NFB BELL® Academy. Now, as a ninth grader, she looks back at the ways online classes affected her learning and describes her return to face-to-face classes.
I was in sixth grade when I first heard that school was shutting down because of the COVID-19 epidemic. I thought, yay! no more classes! I can just stay home, and it will be like doing homework. The way it turned out, though, learning at home was much harder than I expected. When I had a question, there was no teacher across the room to help me. I had to send my teacher an email and then wait and wait for a response.
We had classes on Zoom, and I had a hard time concentrating. It really was a struggle sometimes for me to keep paying attention. I felt like the whole class went at a slower pace. People would have technical difficulties, and sometimes they even got disconnected. Everybody would have to wait while the teacher tried to help one person figure out how to do something like download information or access the chapter. Sometimes I just wanted the session to be over!
When I started seventh grade we were still having virtual classes. I felt as though I were still in sixth grade. I noticed that some students got poor grades on quizzes because they didn't listen well. I had an advantage there because I have pretty good listening skills.
Near the end of seventh grade school opened up again and we all went back to the classroom. I was a little concerned about the transition, but it went pretty smoothly. After a few weeks, I felt like school was pretty much back to normal. Being at school in real time helped with my learning, and it gave me the chance to build better relationships with my friends.
This year I'm in high school. I'm in the resource room for blind kids part of the day, and I'm mainstreamed for three of my classes. At the beginning of the year, an aide walked me from class to class. Then my O&M (orientation and mobility) instructor taught me to get to my classes by myself.
The cafeteria is still a challenge. There's a lady there who tells me what they have, and when I say what I want, she puts it on my tray. I usually get help carrying my tray and finding a table. I need to get better at holding my tray with one hand and using my cane with the other.
High school is really big, and I don't relate to everybody. One teacher noticed that I kept sitting with the kids I knew from the resource room. She encouraged me to sit at different tables and talk to kids I don't know yet. I have to start up conversations and find out if a person is someone I want to be friends with.
One thing I like about high school is that there are a lot of extracurricular activities. In middle school they only had sports, and I wasn't very interested in that. This year I'm involved in a program called Youth in Government. Everybody gets assigned a role, and we work on writing bills and trying to get them passed. I play the part of a legislative assistant. I write proposals and help the legislators write bills. Right now I'm working on a bill about storing carbon so it doesn't pollute the environment. The bill has to be very structured, with a lot of citations. Later in the year we go debate our bills at the Illinois Capitol in Springfield, and the real state legislators listen to us. If they think a bill is good enough they might even take it up in the real legislature!
At our school you can start clubs, but first you have to get permission from one of the administrators. It's kind of hard to find them when you want them! I'd like to start two clubs. I want to start one for people who are interested in Canada and one for people who want to learn about screen readers.
I love to read survival stories. I'm writing a book called The Science Ordeal. It's about a girl going on a CIA mission, and there are tensions between the people on the mission with her. I think it's important to read about people from other countries. Reading gives me a more diverse perspective. There's a lot more to the world than just the United States. A lot of people have the habit of just reading about their own country. Reading is a way to expand our perspective on the world.
When school was virtual I didn't have to worry about moving around the building and going through crowded halls. Now that I'm in a big high school, people worry that I'll bump into other kids. The trick is to pay attention. I need to stay focused. If I stay focused, I avoid getting into trouble. It was a lot harder to stay focused sitting in Zoom sessions day after day. I'm glad I'm back at school, learning and having fun in real time!