3/23/20 Wayne Koh PD1

3/23/2020

Modern Mythology 2020

Wayne Koh

Today marks the first day that Staten Island Tech students begin adapting to the Remote “Learning Experience” Schedule. It is a new experience for everyone involved. Despite the quarantine and NYC schools being closed, teachers are able to maintain a classroom environment and continue teaching. With the help of technology, Zoom, a video conferencing app, allows teachers and students to connect with one another and share information. 

Working from home is different from being in a classroom, as you must be able to manage your time well. In a classroom, periods are always split evenly into ~40-minute sections. With the new “Learning Experience” schedule, each period is broken up into 75-minute sections that are flexible. This drastic change in time and flexibility may result in procrastination for many, myself included. Given time, however, I feel that most of us will have adapted to this change. 

Of course, the reason behind the NYC quarantine is the recent pandemic of the novel COVID-19. Unfortunately, NY has the most confirmed cases with 20,875, with NYC consisting of 12,305 as of today. This number grows exponentially as days pass. It is terrifying to think that this already large number might double within the next month. However, there is good news. Health officials in NY are extracting “plasma from people who have recovered and injecting the antibody-rich fluid into patients still fighting the virus” and analyzing the data to study the effects. Hopefully, this experiment proves to be beneficial in the search of a vaccine. For those interested in further reading, I have attached the link at the end. 

As the schools started to close, we had one week of time before the Remote “Learning Experience” Schedule began to take effect. One of the many things I did with this extra time was browsing social media. As if the virus itself was not bad enough, there were videos of people harassing and bullying Asian people. One would think that in the most diverse city in the world, xenophobia would be almost non-existent. Unfortunately, this is not the case. However, the internet is not all bad; due to the efforts of netizens, issues such as xenophobia are addressed and dealt with by authorities. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/new-york-will-be-first-state-test-treatment-coronavirus-blood-n1167136