Students have fun this summer despite pandemic

Summer 2020 was the longest break that every student had ever had in their experience of school.  The fact that this sudden disengagement from normal school to a whole new life of online lessons and learning was a lot to get used to and many are still getting used to this new hybrid schedule this year.  Despite the ways Covid-19 has affected all of us in our daily lives, students and staff members of the G decided to pass the long vacation in many different and fascinating ways.

It’s always important to keep yourself in a positive and optimistic mindset during this Coronavirus pandemic, so getting away from the reality of everyday life is good to keep your hopes up about the future and your positive outlook on these current events. A trip to a nice warm, breezy environment would be perfect for getting away from the pandemic and the hardships of everyday life especially during the summer of 2020.  Lucky for her, senior Lea Unruh was able to go on a vacation. “During the summer, I took a girls trip to Scottsdale Arizona with my best friends Mary Lokker and Paige Meunier.  It was nice and relaxing to forget about coronavirus for a while and just be happy and stress free,” she said.

A lot of things ended up being cancelled or postponed this summer due to the pandemic such as the NBA season, Summerfest and the Olympic Games, and just about every event or activity that involves being in contact with more than 5 people.  But that didn’t get senior Ozzy Saavedra down. “The cancellations didn’t mean we couldn’t have fun,” he said. 

 Unfortunately for Saavedra, however, three concerts that he bought tickets for were cancelled, but he chose to find other ways to have fun.  “My favorite memory of this summer was seeing my friends almost every day, and watching Sam Sommerfeld jump off my two-story house into my pool which is only about 4 feet deep,” he said.

Junior Jadyn Galaska was disappointed that some of her favorite things to do in summer were cancelled. “I wouldn’t say that this summer was really that bad, although it was a real damper seeing my favorite summer activities like Summerfest and State Fair closing.  I am especially not looking forward to this new school year because of the way school is without having football games or dances and not being able to see half of my friends, but I hope this all over and we get back to normal soon,” she said. 

Getting back into the swing of things is  a struggle for not only the students but also the teachers who have been thrown into a whole new curriculum of teaching and online lessons, which has been a learning experience for all teachers at Greendale.

Environmentalist and Greendale APES teacher Julie Hahm, better known as “Mother Nature” to some students, has mixed emotions about the new hybrid schedule. “Hybrid is challenging and I am working as long of hours as when I was in my first year here and coaching basketball at the same time. I do enjoy playing with new EdTech tools to see what is possible,”  she said. Hahm has been very open to the new concepts of how to teach kids both online and in school and hopes this will become second nature to students in a very short time, if it hasn’t already.