In 2020, schools in Canada faced the unforeseen obstacle of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they shuttered in-person learning. No matter where they were living, students had their lives disrupted. Later in the year, online learning was blended with new forms of in-person learning.
As case numbers began to rise again in Ontario in September 2021, I started grade nine and entered a social experiment known as the “quadmester.” Each day, I was forced to sit for two and a half hours in class for one subject, then repeat the process for a second subject. Those two courses lasted only eight weeks, but they used a curriculum designed to be taught over five months.
