In recent weeks, news of new, life threatening viruses (such as the Corona virus) has gone up at a rapid rate, causing a large amount of disarray and discomfort within the educational system; between the staff members, the students, and the parents, it seems inevitable that schools will close to keep the students and the staff members as safe as possible. Once they understood the circumstances, parents and students started to have questions; "how will the students continue getting their education?", "what format will it be in?", and "how will it be administered?" The response that most school counties developed for these questions was long distance learning. Distance learning is a new format of teaching where students stay at their homes while completing assignments; but, this method of learning has gotten somewhat controversial. Many teachers argue that distance learning is not effective and that it allows for students to copy, cheat, or flat out be lazy. This is a true judgment, but misled; when distance learning is applied to hard working students, it allows for significantly better results more consecutively, making it way more effective than the current system set in place. The reason for its better performance is because of two aspects: number one, it allows for students to learn and practice taking initiative, and number two, its allows for students to learn to identify what their individual work process is, learn to adapt to it, and apply it to the real world.

The controversial part about distance learning is one of its fundamental aspects; the distance. The system of learning that was in actions for decades was based on a word to mouth learning process, where you had to be instructed in multiple different classrooms, on multiple different subjects, by multiple different instructors; it's quite tiresome, I must admit, but the degree of work is not the issue. The issue lies within the "spoon fed" mentality that develops in a work space such as this; a work space entirely devoid of any personal initiative. Never mind don't, when adolescents can't take the initiative for things that deeply benefits them, they will inevitably feel as if they are just a hamster running on a wheel, or just another gear in a clock, causing for a lot of procrastination or laziness; the stripping of self initiative develops a feeling of diminished importance in ones self leading to less attentiveness and over all less care for the subjects being learned. Quite frankly, the students that perform the best in school are the ones that are taught from an extracurricular source, whether its from their parents or someone else, about the importance of education, allowing that child to decide for themselves that they want to pursue it wholesomely i e. they took initiative to learn. With distance learning, students can be in the comfort of their own homes and decide for themselves when they feel best to engage in a new topic.

Regardless of what educational system is in place, whether traditional learning or distance learning, there will be the students that wont study, will copy their friend's homework, and will cheat on test, its unavoidable; this is still true for distance learning, and with common sense, the side effects of it can be determined quite easily. When given the option to to stay at home to complete school, in opposition to going to school to complete school, nine out of ten students would agree in an instant to stay home. When further asking them their reasoning, the responses your most likely to receive consists of this : "Im going to go out and chill with my friends", "Im going to sleep in everyday", "im going to go out shopping", or flat out "Im not going to do any work." The distance aspect of distance learning, when in the hands of people who initially didn't chose to go to school, will be full of procrastination and laziness. There can be measures applied to attempt to weed out the students that are straggling and try to help them develop better work habits, such as retake policies and extra help, but if a student doesn't care for what he or she is being told to work on, inevitably they will figure out a way around that work.

Work is of key importance to success; with out working, you can't attain a great majority of success. Evidently though, work comes in many different forms and styles, usually deriving from how that person had grown up and been raised; so, a work process that may come as natural to one person, may be foreign to another. Learning what a person's work process consists of is fundamental to attaining consecutively good results; distance learning allows for students to be able to distinctly figure out what schedules and work patterns works for them. While still in the traditional educational system, the process of work during that educational period is at the will of the instructor, if the instructor isnt going at a speed you can comfortably retain knowledge, then a lot of information that is being taught will not be remembered; when this process is repeated, it can lead to a development of stress or a numerous slew of issues.

In conclusion, if distance learning were to be put into action nationwide, the outcome would be very beneficial. Students that take initiative for themselves will become more prosperous and successful then the ones that don't; even then, the students that don't take the initiative are given the opportunity to learn how to and apply it to their lives. With the ability to stay at home, students can get the time to learn their work habits, adapt, and improve upon them so they can preform to the best of their ability, regardless of what they are tasked with. And yes, Although there are students who are not compelled to complete school, the amount will be greatly reduced because of the encouraging nature of distance learning, which allows for students to take their own initiative in learning something beneficial to them. 