Remote students. Who are these people?!

How distance learning students are perceived have evolved these last years with the emergence of various distance learning courses online especially since the covid pandemic and with policies aiming at rendering education accessible to all. It might even soon become a new trend. 

Still, nowadays as a few years back, distance learning students are often seen either as overachievers who study remotely in additional curriculum or in a less favorable way as lazy, socially unskilled, bored old people with nothing important to do and in need of filling their lives by doing anything in order to feel valuable (sic), eccentric…

Remote students could well be one or more or even all of the above. However, they are not merely all of those. They could simply be unable to access an educational and cultural program due to health, schedule or commuting reasons. 

Does the fact one is ill or old means he/she chose to study remotely because he/she’s got nothing else to do ? Can’t remote students have projects or goals that require them to train themselves or have a diploma ? Can’t they have a job or be socially skilled enough and still decide to study remotely ? 

There are many stories to tell about people’s reactions and misunderstandings when realizing one is a distance learning student.

This time I want to tell you of my encounter with two men in a Parisian café with beautiful panels of ceramic tiles. It’s a conversation originally in French that I will attempt to phrase in English. A story from a past that doesn’t seem that far off, although from an other century indeed. 

I was strolling through the city not so early a morning. I decided to take a break in a café to have a leisure look at its ceramic panels.

An old man sitting at the counter was chatting with the owner. I sat at the other side and ordered a lemonade.

‘We have never seen you around here. You live nearby?’ the owner started suddenly.

‘No, I don’t live around’ I said.

‘What are you doing around here ?’

‘Just taking some fresh air’ I replied

‘Oh, so you’re going to school later ?’ the owner asked.

‘No’, I said, ‘I’m studying by correspondence.’

‘Oh, you’re looking for a job ! What kind of job are you interested in ?’ he inquired kindly.

‘I’m not interested in any job.’

The owner gave me a rather condescending look. 

‘That’s not how you’re going to find a job !’ he grumbled.

What could I tell him. I wasn’t looking for a job after all.

He went on to talk with the old man in the corner.  ‘You see that’s how it goes nowadays. The young ones they can’t even bring themselves to do anything.’

‘Hey, young lady, what are you doing all day long?’ the old man asked turning his head towards me.

‘I’m studying at home. I pursue a correspondence course’ 

‘Yeah, but what do you do for a living?’ he insisted.

‘ Er… For now I’m preparing my exams for the baccalaureat (leaving certificate).’

‘What? How old are you, young lady ?’

‘Sixteen’ I said.

‘Why are you not at school ?’ they both blurted out with one voice.

‘ Well, I follow my course by correspondence.’ I mumbled shyly.

‘ Yes, but why are you unschooled ?’ the owner uttered abruptly.

‘I’m not. I study at home or at the library.’

‘ Ah, you study at the library’ the old man said nodding .

‘How do you study ? By yourself?’

‘More or less. I get my lessons at the beginning of the year by post and I study as regularly as possible. If I don’t understand something I send a letter to the teachers or I phone them during their guidance time.’

‘Yeah, but how do you learn ?’

‘Er… I read my courses, try to understand what it is about, do my exercises, do some research.’

‘What?'  he said. ‘But you can’t study just by reading books and doing exercises.’

‘Then how would you do?’

‘I wouldn’t study by correspondence’ he replied curtly.

I sipped my rather warm lemonade. After a minute I dared make an attempt at conversing again.

‘Did you always study in a school ?’

‘Of course’ they slashed.

‘ How was it there then ?’ 

I remember the old man whispering his story to me with a smile, that he used to spend his entire time talking to the buddy next to him, and that there was also a girl he was eyeing.

'Good days, weren't they' I added.

' Yes indeed' he muttered.

‘How were you studying ?’

‘What do you mean ?’

‘To learn at school, what were you doing ?’

‘We had these old school books. We had to stand and read passages one by one. Hum...and exercises to do all day long. But I don’t remember any of it.’

‘It’s similiar to the correspondence course in many ways’ I said candidly.

‘They are in nothing similar. And the point anyway is that you should be at school. A young lady like you’ the old man declared.

At that point I dared not ask what he thought I was looking like.

‘Don’t you want a job then’ the owner asked again.

‘No, I need time to study for the baccalaureat.’

‘Yeah, but you’re studying by correspondence, so you need a job.’

‘No, I don’t need a job for now’ I asserted.

‘How can you not need a job. You’re in a correspondence course’ he insisted.

‘I don’t need the money for now.’

They look at me with a consideration soon evaporated. Had they noticed the holes in my shoes and my patched bag ? Silence followed. However they were still glancing at me and also at each other. I had finished my warm still lemonade and decided to head out. As I was paying for the lemonade the owner said uneasily : ‘Young lady, you know, there is other ways. If you need any help…’

‘I wouldn’t mind some help with the maths. I don’t get it at all’ I told him.

I couldn’t really decipher what the two gaping men were thinking at that stage. I congratulated the owner on his beautiful café and promised I would stop by again. 

For years I had wished I made the effort to go there again at least for the ceramics I hadn’t got the leisure to look at. And these days I wonder what those two people would think if I was to tell them I was now pursuing a degree course in an online distance program.

I guess I'm still looking for a job, aren’t I.

Catherine