Obviously, the global pandemic we have experienced over the past two years has affected every aspect of daily life in different ways. One of the biggest changes that we saw came from schools and workplaces. Th
e education system in America changed drastically, and without proper preparations. Students went from hands-on in person learning every day, to navigating online and asynchronous classes. Although this adjustment may have posed challenges for older students, how did it effect the kindergarten and elementary school age children growing up today?
Not only does online school impact a student’s ability to learn, it can have long-term effects that can pose challenges later in life. For students who require extra assistance in the classroom, not having those resources at home makes learning even more complicated. There is also no access to school meals, extracurricular activities, clubs, sports, and more. This lack of daily human interaction is detrimental to students of any age, but especially to very young developing minds. Also, students who speak English as a second language, do not have access to modern technology, or cannot receive help from working parents when needed are all at a huge disadvantage with remote learning. At the most important developmental stages of childhood, children are facing unprecedented challenges and being forced to find solutions they should not be responsible for. This article gives a solid breakdown of issues: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8445757/
Not only are young children struggling with this shift, high school age students also face unique obstacles due to the pandemic. They are forced to take on more responsibilities, grow up faster, and isolation from the typical joys that come with high school. No prom, sports seasons, graduation, etc. due to protocols put in place for safety. This article shares some personal stories from students:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/10/29/teens-poll-academics/
Although these students are older, many of them still face challenges younger students saw: lack of resources for students who require extra help, technological issues, negative home life, etc. All of these issues combined with the stress of being away from your peers for so long especially impacts mental health of students. Then, when they miss out on things like graduation that they have been looking forward to for years, it makes for an underwhelming high school experience overall. More about this topic can be found here: https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/20210608-impacts-of-covid19.pdf
Although this pandemic experience has brought new lessons for all of us, as students, the education system faced more challenges than ever before. Elementary, middle, and high school students as well as college and kindergarten students were forced to adapt to a way of life we were not prepared to face. As things have shifted and vaccines and other resources have became available and learning has moved back in person with new precautions, many students and educators are now facing new problems that arise due to the lack of true learning that has been missed out on in the past two years. I know I have seen these issues firsthand in both high school and even now in college.
I really liked this post and found it extremely relevant to how I feel about school now as we do get slightly more normal compared to what high school was like. The point you make about the lack of education that occurred during online classes is very interesting as it is a problem plaguing teachers around the country with no great solution. There is no time built into the curriculum to review all of the information from previous years, yet students cannot properly learn the new information without a solid foundation. The struggles that you brought up for younger students were also interesting because I had never thought much about them and had mostly considered the struggles that students my age had. Even the struggles that they had were very similar to older students, particularly the isolation and lack of social activities which is something that I struggled with so I can only imagine how they must have felt. It will be very interesting to see the long-term effects of these few years as education continues to return to a new normal.
Hi Bridget,
Given that we were in high school when the pandemic hit, I know that was the age group whose setbacks and harships I was most aware of. I knew younger children were also facing issues, but I never took the time to properly learn about them, so I’m glad you did. And you’re defintely right about remote learning having long term effects. I certainly haven’t felt as engaged and focused in school as I did pre-pandemic, even after the return to in person learning.
As someone that usually keeps to themselves, and is more introverted, I know that even I craved some form of human contact outside of my family during the pandemic. I cannot begin to imagine how other people who depended on seeing their friends everyday for the mental and physical health must have felt during this time period. I liked how you focused on children across the k-12 spectrum, allowing readers to compare their own experiences to other children’s experiences as well. I also really liked reading the washington post article that had personal stories from kids, that you shared with your blog!