In late 2019, the World Health Organization Country Office in China identified several cases of a disease that would give its host pneumonia. Soon that disease, which is now commonly known as Covid, would spread worldwide, forcing lockdowns, quarantines, isolations, and indubitably damaging our youth’s learning. Students of all ages, from kindergarteners to high schoolers had to make the move to online learning. Teachers had to react quickly to the lockdowns and provide as adequate learning as possible. Parents had to juggle work, inflation, and their children while being socially isolated from their peers. Families were torn apart by the death and destruction that was brought down by COVID, yet in our small community, we managed to thrive and persist. 

For many, the social interactions that the in-person school environment provided were the most missed factor during online learning. Among students, the lack of social interactions lead to bad mental health, frustration, low self-esteem, and high burnout rates. For the teachers, the loss of the ability to vent during breaks, air out their grievances, and have conversations had similar mental and social effects as those experienced by students. Burning out as a result of the long duration that we were isolated has led, according to the US Department of Education, to 2.6% lower student admission to K-12 schools and close to 6,000 teachers leaving the teaching profession in 2020-2023. 

For both teachers and students, high levels of stress and burnout are attributed to the pandemic (Brookings 2023). Bella Brekhus, a student of Mendocino High School said: “I had zero motivation. I would just not do it (the schoolwork).” This sentiment was replicated by another student Nathan Kossivas. Nathan would use his bad internet connection as a scapegoat to not do his schoolwork. He thought that the work that was given to him wasn’t meaningful because he couldn’t access it consistently. Though his teacher thought the work assigned would lead to a positive learning experience, it never equated to anything except frustration.

Both Bella and Nathan faced technological issues in their pandemic journey. Bella could not access her math teacher’s Zoom links. Bella missed out on half a year of math due to this fact. She believed that her math teacher was negligent and that she was at fault for Bella’s loss of learning during the pandemic. “I couldn’t access the Zoom links because she put them on a certain website that my iPad could not access, because I didn’t have a computer.” Bella even sent an email to her teacher and never received any response.

Marshall had a contrasting opinion about technology during the pandemic,  compared to Bella and Nathan. When asked if he had any technological issues during the pandemic, he said “I had no issues with the technology. It was pretty easy for me to instruct over Zoom. I feel that most students with the exception of a couple felt successful over Zoom.” Also, he thought that due to his classes being mostly project-based, his students had more flexibility for school work. The struggles he could perceive from students were mostly social, and emotional. Marshall saw a substantial amount of evidence of learning, which led to his optimistic view of his classes. 

Fewer programs were offered during the pandemic at Mendocino High School, though the programs that were offered gave students an equitable opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the program, according to one well-established teacher, Marshall Brown. Marshall, the electronic arts (Video, Podcast, Radio, etc.) connoisseur of MHS, had to cut down on his course load, temporarily eliminating some classes like Music Production. Due to the program’s lack of instruments, he had to focus on Equity, to simplify his classes, for the better of all involved. It would not have been fair for some of his students to take Video and Music Production and have access to equipment, and other students not have access. His take on equity and student learning parallels that of the thesis of an Indiana University paper, “A Pandemic of Busywork”. The thesis of the paper was “Engagement for the sake of engagement is not a constructive aim. The benefit of student engagement for student achievement typically requires that the student’s effort is invested in meaningful activities that are clearly connected with to-be-assessed learning outcomes.” Marshall’s focus on the equity of his classes, and his students, comes in close association with student engagement. If he had held those classes, with limited materials, more than half of the students would have lacked engagement and therefore be disconnected from meaningful, positive learning outcomes. Marshall’s alteration to limit the amount of busy work from his pre-pandemic class load to his pandemic workload made student engagement and learning more successful.

For some, the time away from school was an opportunity to focus on the development of other skills. Music was Nathan’s escape from the stress of school. In a way, he was motivated to focus on his guitar play, instead of his schoolwork. He said, “I always had a guitar in my hand, and I would just fiddle around with it. It would take my mind off of the stress from all of the work.” Due to Nathan’s persistent attitude in his musical learning, he has become musically fluent and is a wonder to listen to. 

Contrary to popular belief, the pandemic was not completely negative for schools. Francis Rutheford, the technology expert, beloved Electronics, and Engineering teacher,  said “It’s a mixed blessing, a silver lining in the cloud… I could take this beautiful, wonderful, continuous universe, and chop it up into little slices and port it through a couple of times a week. My concern is that I don’t get a chance to share this big picture [his full in-person curriculum]. So, that’s the limitation [of online learning]. But, the advantage is that they have all the little pieces [of knowledge], and it’s up to them [the students]. It’s kind of like Spanish, or another language. You could learn all the vocabulary and all the grammar rules, and then there’s literature and conversation, and that’s where it’s very prudent, that’s where the pieces come together.” Francis’s view about the world on such a grand scale, and the Zoom learning platform,  fit perfectly into his curriculum. Using tools that were already available in his classroom, various kits, and some intuition, his students absorbed the little pieces of knowledge and started to gain perspective and view the electronic/technological world on a grander scale.

Pandemics are always an eye-opening experience. Like with the influenza pandemic that began in 1918, COVID has changed the lives of the youth for years to come. One thing that many students and teachers have come to comprehend, is to never take life as we know it for granted. Not only life, such as everyday social interactions; like going to a coffee shop and ordering your items, or having a brief conversation with a fellow gym-goer. Nobody liked the pandemic; however, in the future, we now have the tools to better combat the loss of learning and the stress, so we can mitigate a potential, inevitable future pandemic from affecting our school.

Coate, Patrick. 2021. “Remote Work Before, During, and After the Pandemic Quarterly Economics Briefing–Q4 2020 By Patrick Coate Posted Date: January 25, 2021.” National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI). https://www.ncci.com/SecureDocuments/QEB/QEB_Q4_2020_RemoteWork.html. 

Hugh, Heather J., and Belen Chavez. 2022. “PACE – California Test Scores Show the Devastating Impact of the Pandemic on Student Learning.” Policy Analysis for California Education. https://edpolicyinca.org/newsroom/california-test-scores-show-devastating-impact-pandemic-student-learning. 

Motz, Benjamin A., Joshua D. Quick, Julie A. Wernet, and Tonya A. Miles. 2021. “A Pandemic of Busywork.” Indiana University. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1287108.pdf. 

“Supporting Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Maximizing In-Person Learning and Implementing Effective Practices for Students in Quarantine and Isolation | U.S.” n.d. Department of Education. Accessed October 17, 2023. https://www.ed.gov/coronavirus/supporting-students-during-covid-19-pandemic.Hall, Marley. 2023. “How Has COVID Affected College Students?” BestColleges.com. https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/how-has-covid-affected-college-students/.