The title of this post might confuse a lot of people. Surely lockdown has made education a lot harder for the majority of people, however throughout my own experience of home learning, I’ve discovered a lot about myself and how I work best. Being able to do my work at home gave me a lot more flexibility to spend more time on important subjects like English and Maths. I found myself being a lot more organised with my workload because I was able to see all the tasks i had to do that day and do them in the order that made sure I spent most of my energy on the more difficult tasks.
Another advantage I found to lockdown was that I was able to do my work from my bedroom, an environment I was able to control. Having the room set up in a way that everything was where I needed it to be was so helpful. I didn’t need the help to access my school supplies like I would usually at school so I was able to be much more independent. The downside to this however, was not having the same support I did at school. The subjects that I would usually have support in, such as maths, became new challenges that I had to figure out how to overcome. I ended up typing out my maths work on my iPad, which meant having to copy and paste the mathematical symbols that weren’t already on the keyboard, this took a long time and me being me, I was always determined to finish the entire maths worksheet even if it took me 2 hours. it was difficult for me to remember that I didn’t have to finish every single piece of work to the highest standard, which sometimes would result in me doing my schoolwork late into the evening and being too invested in work that wouldn’t have been as big of a deal if it was being done in class.
The biggest downside I found to lockdown was the social side of school. Before schools shut I had just began finding more confidence in myself and trying to make more friends which was a big step for me because when I started Secondary school I became a lot more socially anxious and d really make as many friends as my peers. it’s only been in S3 that I’ve truly found the confidence to approach new people and try to widen my social circle. I think being locked down for half a year might be a bit of a setback in my journey to making new friends. I haven’t felt too isolated at home though, I keep in touch with most of my close friends through social media. But it does worry me how I’ll be when I go back to school full time, the thought of going back right now makes me nervous but I know I’ll be fine on the day.
(In case you’re confused, this blog post was written before schools go back but by the time you’re reading this they’ve been back for a week)