Online Learning and Students' Mental Health Essay Sample

When the pandemic started, schools all around the globe started a new form of schooling; online learning. Online learning has grown to become a very popular source of education for many students. I believe offering optional online learning to the district will have multiple benefits, including better mental health, bullying prevention, and better attendance.

Offering online schooling full time can have mental health benefits for teens. During the pandemic, Southwest England put on an experiment to see how online schooling affected teens' anxiety and stress. They thought teens' mental health would get worse, but it actually showed the opposite. “In the girls monitored, 10% of them dropped in anxiety and stress levels during the time they were studied. And even more significantly, 18-26% of boys from the same age group also experienced a decrease in anxiety and stress.” This may not seem like alot of teens, but online schooling still helps many teens who have high anxiety. Some teens (including myself) sometimes physically can't be in a school setting because of their anxiety, and need a break away from the terrifying place. Adding online schooling to the district can help teens focus on their mental health without having to worry about being in a school setting. 

Not only do students miss school because of their mental health, but they miss school because of bullying. Bullying affects many students world wide. Offering online school can help some kids not have to worry about being bullied at school. CNN wrote an article about why kids don't want to go back to in person school. One kid, a ten year old from Atlanta said he would rather stay online because he was able to escape bullying. “Jester said he's been bullied at school by kids who call him ugly.” Because of online school, kids get to escape the unsafe learning environment and get away from the bullying. Sherri Gordon, a bullying prevention expert and a published article wrote a different article on bullying and online school. Gordons article explains the benefits of online school and how it lessens bullying for students around the country. In one paragraph, she states that bullying can cause kids to not want to be at school and learn, and offering online school can give some security and protection over the targeted students. Bullying is a huge problem all over the world that causes severe harm to kids and teens. Offering online school to the district will stop many forms of bullying and help all of the targeted students feel safe and be ready to learn.

Keeping good attendance is another struggle for a lot of students. If we added online learning to the district, attendance won't be a huge problem for students anymore. Back in October, I was having a lot of problems with my mental and physical health. I was having severe panic attacks every day and in that mental state I couldn’t handle being in a public setting. The thought of going to school completely terrified me. Just thinking about leaving the house sent me into a bad panic attack. I missed about two weeks of school when this happened and I was very far behind in all of my classes. My grades went down and I struggled to get them back up. If the district added online learning, me as well as many other students who may have this sort of problem will still be able to attend school. We will still be able to learn and get classwork done when we actually can't be there. Keeping good attendance is very important, especially in high school. Offering online schooling will keep kids learning and taking classes even when they cant be in a classroom setting.

While adding online schooling can be a huge advantage for students, there can be some disadvantages. For example, the University of Illinois wrote an article about the strengths and weaknesses of online learning. The article states that online schooling shouldnt be offered because there is no connection between students and teachers. The article states that some students can't get the help they need because there is no bond between the students and teachers, ultimately leading to the student falling behind in their work. This is a valid reason to not add online to the district, but that's why I propose it as an optional form of learning. Students can still have one on one interactions with their teachers while choosing which days they want to go into class and stay home. From my personal experience, being able to stay home and do online learning actually helped my communication with my teachers. I was always able to email my teachers and ask questions and still get help when I needed it. I know that each and every student learns differently and some students need it in person while others prefer online. Either way, adding online learning to the district can help each student get one on one help in the best way possible for them. 

When full time online learning first started in 2020, most schools didn’t really know what they were doing when it came to teaching kids. An article about online learning written by Kipp Bentley, a teacher stated in his article that mental health concerns, poor teaching, student isolation, and more made it a huge struggle to do online learning. These reasons make sense. In isolation, it was difficult to stay on task when the school gave us some worksheets and told us that was the rest of the work for the year. It was a new experience for everyone. I believe that if we do more research on online learning and find out how to properly add online learning as an option for students, everyone will be much happier with the outcome. Kipp later states in the article that having online learning as an option can help students who are struggling to learn in a classroom environment. He also brings up the fact that learning how to efficiently do online learning will benefit everyone. Adding online learning as an option will do lots of good for students, if we learn how to fix the tiny flaws and problems with this plan online learning will be able to help many students.

Adding online learning to the district can help every single student learn in the way that's best for them. Online learning can help students with their mental health, bullying problems, and attendance. Yes online learning also has disadvantages like no one on one connection with teachers and the difficulty for students to learn, but I believe if we put a lot of thought and time into this idea, it will benefit a lot of students and keep each and every one of us learning.