A school is a place for building friendships, learning responsibility, and after school activities, but it seems as though the Coronavirus has taken that all way within a blink of an eye. However, students are still trying to piece together a semblance of their normal lives. 

Junior Taha Vahanvaty is trying to take a shot at restoring that semblance of normality by hosting The Acceptance Project’s meetings online through Zoom. 

“I know it’s not the same thing as meeting in person,” said Vahanvaty, “but I think it’s the best we can do right now.” 

Video chat services such as Zoom have quickly gone from being a novelty to becoming a necessity for millions across the country. Schools, including our very own Stroudsburg, are beginning to rely on services such as Zoom to help provide a continuity of education as well as a sense of normality for students. 

“Of course we encountered problems with video and other students audio during the discussion,” said, The Acceptance Project Advisor Revered Cynthia Crowner, “But we were still able to have a lot of fun while still being able to learn a lot of interesting perspectives.”

With schools across Pennsylvania being closed for the rest of the school year, students have no other choice to buckle down for the online learning ahead of them. 

In many schools, teachers are posting lessons and homework assignments to learning platforms such as Canvas or Google Classroom, where students can also upload their work. Elsewhere, schools are focused on maintaining social connections among staff and students, encouraging them to meet during virtual office hours or share photos on their social media.

The variety of approaches is continuously growing. But a common thread runs throughout all of the them.No matter what school districts are doing, many students are currently attending school in their beds and on their sofas and at their kitchen tables, alongside siblings and pets, with laptops and tablets and textbooks that offer only a partial connection to the rest of the world. 

“COVID-19 took a lot away from us, said Vahanvaty, “but hosting The Acceptance Project on Zoom is just a small way that other students and I can take some part of our lives back. 

For more information on The Acceptance Project’s Zoom meetings, you can join their zoom through this link, and their Instagram page here.