I am a 10-year-old student. At school we are taught that we should always let our voice be heard. So I thought why couldn’t we do it in a real-life situation?

As you might have guessed, I am talking about school and online schooling. Online learning has been hard. Not only for the teachers and parents, but also for us children.

During the last term, there were two opposite extremes. Some schools did a couple of hours of online lessons and other schools did around six hours per day. As a student, I don’t think either of those ways of online learning was fair on us. I got headaches because of all the stress we were going through, as well as from the strain of looking at a computer screen for all that time.

It is a child’s right to have a good and well-balanced education. I am hoping that schools will open and I can meet my friends again… so long as everyone follows precautions. If things get worse, obviously I understand that health and safety must come first.

The worst case scenario will be that we have to go back to online learning. If that happens, I hope we can learn from the mistakes and balance the online time better.

I think sometimes adults underestimate us children. Because in truth, how different are we from adults? Yes, adults help us understand things and they helped us cope during this pandemic. Yet, even though they know more than us, they sometimes underestimate how much we understand and how much we can cope.

The main reason I wanted to write this letter is to tell people that many of us students hope schools can open if everyone follows the guidelines.

I miss laughing with my friends, I miss playing tag with my friends in the playground, the breeze coming in through the open windows, my teachers’ fun lessons and, most of all, the excitement before break. I don’t want to be “muted” any more.

Hannah Mae Gruppetta is a 10-year-old student.