As I have discussed previously on this blog, online and remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has presented both new challenges as well as opportunities for improvement in some areas. Today, I want to talk about how online learning during the pandemic played a crucial role in the lives of kindergarten and early elementary school age children.
It can be easy to only think about how kids our age were affected by remote learning, but at least we were old enough to be self-sufficient at home or just away from school in general. What about the kids that were still learning how to read, count, or even identify colors? These students likely faced bigger challenges than anyone else.
Having four younger cousins on one side of my family, I saw first-hand how online learning impacted kids ages 7-11 at the time. My younger cousins were not only struggling to learn basic information, but they had to rely on their parents more than ever too in order to get access to their learning. Some kids needed their parents to turn on a computer, let alone help them learn their work. My one cousin was about 8 when COVID first hit. My aunt works as a RN at the local hospital, and is a single mother with two kids and a dog at home. She explained how a lot of the time, the responsibilities to help her youngest fell to her older son, who was only 11 at the time, while she also relied on family to watch the kids at times when her or her ex-husband could not. The older brother had to help his little brother with making sure the computer worked, got his homework done, and answered his questions throughout the day along with managing his OWN school work. When my aunt was home, she often had to help both of her kids with internet connection i
ssues and other things.
All of this extra responsibility on parents was a huge aspect of the pandemic that I think often goes unseen. My next-door neighbors are a young couple with three kids, ages six, three, and just under a year. While both managing their own jobs from home online, they often asked my sister and I for help babysitting during the afternoons and weekends once vaccines came out and other safety measures were able to be taken. I saw just how much help kids this young require with technology as well as academic material.
Although all of this information is nothing new, my question is this: will there be long-term ef
fects for kids who missed out on crucial lessons in the classroom during COVID? I think yes. Students who were learning the basics of education, things like reading and spelling, will use these skills for the rest of their lives. Putting so much responsibility on the parents or whoever is at home to help teach them when educators could not do more because they were remote is a huge thing not many people recognize right now. I personally have seen one of my young cousins, who struggles with severe ADHD and other learning issues, have serious challenges in later elementary school now even back in person due to the inadequate lessons he had during an important phase of childhood.
With all of this, I just wanted to end on one final but important note. Although this post talks a lot about the struggles parents and students faced, it is NOT the teachers’ fault. They did their best with what they had, same as everyone else. I understand it is probably just as hard for them to teach as it was for some kids to learn.
I 100% agree with you when you say that there will be long-term negative effects on younger children that had to learn virtually during the pandemic. My brother’s girlfriend got employed as a teacher at the beginning of this school year. She had previously student taught virtually and had helped to tutor, and student teach whenever possible during and before the pandemic to gain experience. She has told me firsthand of the immediate effects the pandemic has had on the learning timeline of the children. There are kids who get into her 2nd grade class that are far behind the benchmarks they would be at with a year of normal instruction. There are kids that are struggling to learn how to read and write because their knowledge was stunted during the virtual learning year. Personally, I think that if nothing is done to catch these children up to where they are supposed to be in the learning curriculum, they will only continue to fall further behind. Good post!
To be honest, I never really thought about the impact COVID would have on the younger generation until reading this blog post. I know as a high schooler, remote learning definitely had a negative impact on me, so I can see how damaging it could be for children whose brains are still in major development. Looking back on my elementary school experience, I can’t imagine losing an entire year of it. I can distinctly remember every single year and the memories/interactions I had with my teachers, friends, and other peers. Each year was vital for my development, both mentally and physically, and I think having remote learning would’ve seriously hindered my ability to socialize and interact with others. I hope COVID didn’t stunt too much in terms of the development of younger generations.
I have personal first-hand experience with this topic as well. I was a religion teacher for the third grade both pre-pandemic and during it in my last couple of years of high school. I taught kids from multiple school districts who all went to school with different forms of learning in place. This included various plans of hybrid, virtual, and in-person learning. The degree to which my students had access to learning resources at their schools were staunchly different. I noticed a huge difference as well in class cohesiveness before and during the pandemic. Social and learning skills were impacted across the board. For some students, religion class was their only opportunity to see and interact with other children outside of their families. Coming in the classroom was a huge deal for them. They faced so many challenges in adjusting to ever-shifting norms. I do worry about how much their primary learning was harmed in the peak of the pandemic, but I know that the resilience they built made them very tough cookies. Thank you for your post! I think it is wonderful that you recognize both the harm to students and the strength of teachers trying to teach during unprecedented times.