STUDENTS’ FEELINGS HAVE BEEN IGNORED
Flashback to January of 2020 — before the world was dominated by a virus, when we discussed the first COVID-19 cases in our high school journalism class and Samantha was a sophomore and Lucia was a junior. As daily updates came in, we began to ask ourselves, “What if we actually got two weeks off of school?” Little did we know that March 13, 2020, would be the last time in a long time that we would live a normal, virus-free life.
Congrats to the class of 2021 — your entire reality is now experienced through a liquid crystal display, at least for a few more days. There are pros and cons to being a student doing online learning during a global pandemic. Pros: pajama day is every day, being able to spend time with family and more outdoor activities. Cons: the heavy workload we receive weekly from some of our teachers and not fully understanding material because they have us working at a fast pace. Not to mention the amount of times that websites crash or assignments don’t send because of internet issues.
We can speak for most students when we say time management has been the largest complication we have faced. School ends at 3:15 p.m., and homework starts at 3:20 p.m. Seems like the only break we get is the 40-minute lunch break, and even then we spend most of the time in club meetings.
At least we never have to complain about being bored because now we’re as busy as bees. Being busy has drained us mentally, though. We lost sleep, and we lost ourselves in a dark hole surrounded by assignments, projects, tests and extracurricular activities. We found ourselves in a corner doubting ourselves, overthinking, in a depressed state of mind. The number of pandemic-related deaths and assignments on Canvas rose at a simultaneously alarming rate, along with our anxiety. We began taking mental vacations where we needed to reflect and let go of our burdens in order to survive.
Additionally, it’s been difficult to make an impact and a difference in the community when we cannot make in-person contact with others. Volunteer opportunities have gone silent. No one wants to spend more time on the computer sacrificing her or his mental health. Our hearts go out to the students who counted on this year to build a résumé of achievements to strengthen their academic repertoire — ourselves included. Regarding test scores, it has been virtually impossible to contact anyone with questions about college or national testing. Between lost emails and voicemails that are never returned, we feel baffled. We have been on our own to hunt and assess what is expected of us. Counselors have been trying their hardest, but imparting our thoughts and questions through a screen puts up a noticeable communication barrier. One word encapsulates this illegitimate year: hopeless.
A vicious cycle transpires: We have no motivation to complete our academic work but feel as though we cannot focus on our creative projects until the academic work is complete. And thus we end up doing absolutely nothing meaningful with our day. Before we know it, we go into our Saturday with a nonsensical amount of unfinished work, stress and exhaustion. We cancel our weekend plans to catch up and stare at our screens, hating ourselves for every wasted second of our week. As people who prefer using our time in class to finalize work, this was a foreign world of self-reliance. Hiding behind a black screen has blocked our social skills from the sunlight, leaving them to rot away. No one unmutes their microphones; everyone sits in silence. We have no incentive to reach out to our friends, and occasionally when we do, it’s now their mental state that leaves them unable to respond. Soon, we find ourselves lonely with no exercise, no socialization and blurry vision from all the screen time.
The launch of this school year was onerous, no doubt. It took time to grasp the specifics of applications such as Canvas, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. We hear an abundance about the effects of COVID-19 on teachers, businesses and many other facets of people’s lives, but we believe that the feelings of students have gone unspoken or been ignored. For a whole year, we had to learn to adapt and fix things ourselves with inadequate support offered and an evident lack of communication between teachers and students. Our school is opening back up next week for in-person learning. We hope that everything feels more normal once again.
Hiding behind a black screen has blocked our social skills from the sunlight, leaving them to rot away.