I was very, very, very skeptical at first that the online learning would not really work on my 8-year-old daughter. My
husband and I even considered her skipping school last school year hoping the pandemic would end the following
year and then she will resume school by then. But then I thought, "What else would she do?" If she doesn't learn
from school, what else can she do? Long story short, we decided to enroll her in the end.
First month of the school year, every one was adjusting; the students, the teachers, the parents. We were all still
learning how to use Google Classroom and we're all depending on fast internet. We used PLDT Fibr hoping it would
not give us any problems. Some of my daughter's classmates were in the province so their internet connection was
intermittent.
I was present each and every day of my daughter's class. I assisted her so she won't have a hard time looking for
programs and talking to her teacher. The good thing about it was I was learning first hand what her strengths and
weaknesses are. I noticed she needed to practice more on her writing so we did more practice. I also noticed she
was shy and did not recite too much so we also talked about that and practiced and reviewed. I was like her tutor.
I thought I was going to do this for the first 6 months only, but I tutored her for the entire school year. I tried leaving
her alone, but she gets easily distracted if I'm not with her. Plus, she also needs help with her Filipino lessons. If I'm
not there with her, she might not understand her Filipino lessons well.
Just last Friday we received her certificate finishing 1st grade and I can really say it somehow worked for us. Of
course, I believe the results would be way different than having face-to-face classes, but she did get better with her
Filipino, she speaks more fluent than before, and she made some online friends who plays the same game as her
and that's the best thing that happened to her for quite some time. I also think her friends helped her be less shy
because they would often talk a lot, mostly about games. It's definitely way better than her just playing games alone
in the house. Talking helps. It helps alleviate loneliness and boredom regardless of age.
So I believe enrolling her in that online class was a good idea. Now that the pandemic is still on-going, I believe online
classes will remain. Will we enroll her next school year? Definitely yes because my daughter says she will miss her
classmates.