As we speak, school districts, boards of education, and superintendents are weighing the burdensome decision of the extent to which their schools will reopen.This decision is not to be taken lightly – there are literally NO good options and every decision will have supporters, detractors, and complainers. Not being in school is challenging for everyone – working parents, the newly unemployed, teachers, administrators, and of course students. Let us not forget that students have been out of school and away from their friends and support structures since March, and many will continue to be this way through 2020.
While school leaders and educators try to do their best to continue learning at rigorous levels, it is imperative to not allow the voices and feelings of students to go unheard. That’s what this post is all about – our students and their experiences.
Below, you will read a variety of student voices from John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring. These students were enrolled in a course known as Theory of Knowledge, within the International Baccalaureate Programme at Kennedy. Their teacher, Mr. Michael Williams, was the 2016 Teacher of the Year for Montgomery County Public Schools, and was most recently the department chair for Kennedy’s social studies department. His students graciously agreed to lend their voices to our podcast’s blog, and will hopefully help inform all school leaders, educators, and families on the experience of the most important people in our community: our children.
Throughout, you will find quotes under a variety of categories. Students wrote these vignettes independently of each other, but you will quickly see how similar their feelings and experiences are in terms of the feelings of separation, longing for connection, and the understanding of living through something absolutely historic.
Some students talked extensively about the harm to their social-emotional health and well being:
“I think my first thoughts were “thank god” because I truly needed a break. I was getting overwhelmed. I was originally under the assumption that we would stay home so that people could be tested and treated for the disease but when I realized there was no cure I knew we’d have to stay home longer…”
Several students were upfront about how they thought it would actually be beneficial to their well being, but quickly reflected on their own thinking:
My initial thoughts about the pandemic quarantine were happy thoughts, a month before school closed I had been struggling with my health and for all that time I had been longing for a break from life. The thought of being home without having to go to school, without having to attend my sports practices along with dance practices, not having to attend all the events I was responsible for seemed like the ideal thing for me at the moment, after all, I only imagined it happening for max two weeks…”
“I was devastated when the quarantine was first announced, not because it meant many people had died, but because my lacrosse season would be postponed. The train of thought during those first hours was completely and utterly selfish, however, I was not alone in feeling disappointed by events being cancelled. My peers believed the quarantine would only last maybe a few weeks at tops and I believed the same thing. I didn’t think it would be hard to endure and I thought it would be like a vacation from school…however, these thoughts were soon dismissed once we realized the severity of this virus…”
“As far as enduring it, I saw it as a good thing. School was becoming increasingly stressful and a break seemed nice…about two weeks in I started wanting to pull my hair out. My sleep schedule was not healthy. As much as I hate to admit it, I need structure and without school I am a bit of a mess. I have never had the best time management. I thought I would sleep in for a few extra hours everyday, read some books, maybe do some SAT prep. I thought I might start a workout routine and do some self care projects, but I am not going to lie, that is not at all what I have been doing. I am not binge watching my Netflix shows like I said I would. I am not as close with my friends as I expected I would be. Homework is still stressful and school is even harder from home.”
Some students reflected on they many challenges they were facing on a daily basis to adjust to “the new normal”:
“Overall, this quarantine, in general, has made my life more difficult than it is and lately, I feel like it’s more than I can handle. It has messed up my sleeping schedule, it has made me lose motivation to go out…to get some sun, it’s made me think differently about our society, it’s made me adapt to new things…even though it is very overwhelming, I know I can get through this and I just pray for things to get better.”
While other students commented on adjusting to the harsh realities of online and distance learning:
“As the virus continues, It’s been hard to adapt to the new online school learning system. Each day, I’m assigned multiple assignments and meetings at once from some of my teachers, and I find it very frustrating. I’m exhausted from seeing more assignments I have to do each day and I feel like I’m not given enough time to complete them regardless if we have a new grading system. I understand that these are difficult times for everyone, but I think I can speak for all students when I say we need some teachers to give us more time to complete our work and fewer assignments. School, in general, has me stressed too. It’s not just receiving so much work, but I’m worried about my future. This is the time where I’m supposed to start looking at colleges, and soon enough I need to start applying to them. It all just has me overwhelmed.”
“Then I heard about the online school which I couldn’t stand because the teachers felt like they had all the power in the world because they can just give us work anytime and tell us “oh you have to turn this in by this date” which was very annoying and irritating but at the end of the day I got used to it…”
Many students demonstrated their understanding of what it must be like to be in another’s shoes:
“The longer the quarantine goes the more I feel sorry for every senior who might not be able to experience a prom or graduation, athletes who aren’t able to play the sport that they love so much and unemployed people who aren’t able to work because of the pandemic…”
Students commented on the adverse impacts quarantine was having on their close friends and family members:
“My life under this pandemic quarantine has been a roller coaster of emotions. When the quarantine started, I didn’t think that Friday [the last day before emergency closure] would be the last time I saw my friends. In the first few days, I had stayed home and checked up on my family and friends. A few days later…I celebrated my birthday. Spending my 17th birthday at home with nothing to do wasn’t how I imagined I was going to celebrate another year of life, but my family surprised me with a cake and tried to make sure I enjoyed my day as much as possible.”
As educators, we spend a lot of time and effort to ensure that our students live and operate in a sort of “bubble.” We want to protect them from the harsh realities of the real world, while also adequately preparing them for the potential difficulties that the world will have on many of us throughout our lives. With the global pandemic impacting us all, we have students who face this reality head on:
“I thought that the virus wasn’t that big of a deal…I assumed it was a simple common cold that’s going around…once I saw society wearing masks, gloves and distancing themselves from a person, I understood that it wasn’t just a simple cold. I always thought that these diseases…only happened in movies or they were only stories that were told in textbooks…but I would never have believed or imagined that it would happen to us.”
“When I first heard about [COVID], I was excited about not having school because we’d be able to have a break that was very needed. I didn’t think it would last as long as it has. I thought it would have lasted maybe a few weeks but after finding out how many people have it especially in Maryland made me think it would last a lot longer. I didn’t really take it seriously because I didn’t think it would be as bad as it has gotten, especially when one of my best friends lost her dad to it a few weeks ago…”
In a school that is as highly impacted like John F. Kennedy High School, a school with more than 80% of students on Free and/or Reduced Meals, many students’ families work two, three, or more jobs to ensure they can maintain the sort of livelihood that is necessary in an area that has such a high cost of living. Students spoke eloquently about their concerns shifting from “maybe it won’t impact me”, to “given my family’s work obligations, it may very well hit us”:
At first I thought it was just like the flu, later on I saw that it was more serious and life threatening. I was worried that one of my loved ones would catch it. Especially because most family members didn’t get the chance to be in quarantine. My stepfather still has to work, he has to put himself at risk because he knows that if he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. My mom still has to go clean an office where there were people who got the coronavirus...We are all getting affected by this. Some still take the coronavirus as a joke when it shouldn’t be. It’s sometimes a little overwhelming to be at home, my learning experience isn’t the same and I sometimes can’t even do my school work because I help my mom and take care of my baby and when it’s night time I’m too tired and I fall asleep…
“When things got worse, I started to get worried a little bit. People started going to stores and clearing them out of essentials, the economy started to crash, and the number of cases started to rise. I started to think that it would be harder to endure.”
“The one that I am worried about is my dad because he goes out everyday to work because we don’t have don’t the opportunities that others do. I don’t want anything bad to happen to my family because they are everything I have and that I love so much. I think that this is difficult to endure because there are so many families that are going through this, some are fighting, have already fought this and there are people that lost the battle that couldn’t make it…”
These entries were assembled and compiled from the words of the Class of 2021, IB Theory of Knowledge students from John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring Maryland.
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