COVID19 A Teens Perspective
the simple
is overlooked by complexity the easy
is missed by cleverness it is with
difficulty
we make fool of ourselves
recently jamie dimon the ceo of jpmorgan
chase
said the word unprecedented is rarely
used properly
but this time it’s being used properly
the kova 19 pandemic created an
environment that has flabbergasted
humanity
the challenges posed by coba 19 are far
and wide
and hardly anyone was unscathed by the
calamity
i’d like to focus however on the
perspective of teenagers
as a teen entering high school three
years ago
my focus was on studies college prep and
making new friends
all of this changed in the middle of my
high school experience
in the march of 2020 dreams were
replaced with uncertainties
survival and fear for the future school
closures and social distancing have
affected all students
students education mental health
and their future have all been
compromised
i assumed the fourth marketing period
was a blur for all students
as it was for me in spite of the very
best efforts of my school administrators
the society pre-kobit was built for
brick and mortar attendance
and was not ready for a sudden digital
transformation
in addition to disrupted education cover
19 had a
monstrous impact on many underprivileged
students food and safety
with food and health the maslow’s basic
needs in jeopardy
it became more difficult for students to
focus on their studies
not everyone is blessed with broadband
facilities
making the committed few work harder to
consume education
at home to make situations
even worse for students some schools are
unable to
do not plan to provide students with the
necessary accommodations
needed to learn virtually there are
plenty of challenges
and would and with the new school year
on the horizon
they must be solved soon as i watch the
media
i see so many experts sharing their
opinions on what they think about what
other people think
offering conflicting composals to a
complex
problem for my teen brain
this seems like a kaleidoscope colorful
but confusing i wanted to find out what
people like me believed
i wanted to learn what my fellow teens
thought about the world today
so that’s what i did in a non-scientific
study
i conducted i received 33 responses
from teen friends who were all in high
school
first on a scale from one to five one
being very bad
and five being very good how do you feel
your school
is responding to covin approximately
forty percent of students
voted for the middle option of three
based on this the majority of my
respondents believe that their school
are doing a mediocre job or doing the
minimum
to keep students and families in the
loop
for the next question do you feel safe
going back to school
the responses were overwhelmingly
negative
as two-thirds of students responded with
no
more than two-thirds of responders are
not comfortable
and are skeptical about the current
preparedness of schools
to reopen in the graph
i have listed my respondents number one
concern
that they want their school to consider
out of 32 respondents who answered this
question
15 of them had the same number one
concern
how schools will enforce mass and
distancing
throughout the long school day other
responses have made it clear
that they have also concerns about their
safety
and the biggest reason as to why they
attend school
their educational learning
when asked if the respondents felt like
online school
gave them the same support as in school
learning
more than 80 percent of responders voted
no
when asked why one of the respondents
replied that
the time focused on learning out of
school did not remotely compare
to what was taught in school this
ultimately
resulted in them becoming frustrated
that there simply wasn’t enough time
to learn what needed to be learned the
respondent also mentioned that their
motivation to
learn took a drastic decline as it
only took us 70 percent on an assignment
to count as a 100 percent
leaving the respondent to ask themselves
why they should put in the same amount
of work as
normal in a brown university study
they claimed that the coronal virus had
undone months of educational gain
resulting into unprepared students
they recommended that educators
preparing for the fall of 2020
will likely need to consider ways to
support students who are
academically behind
horace mann a trailblazer for the
american education system in the 19th
century
famously stated that the education
system was a great
equalizer of the conditions of man
which means that americans have a choice
to make
whether we will allow education to wedge
to be a wedge that widens the inequality
or whether we will use its power
man initially thought of this as a
chance to create opportunities for all
but the ideology has always been
threatened and kova 19
only proved the vast difference between
low
and high education in an experiment
conducted by the pew research center in
2015
it was found that about one-third of
households with children
ages from 6 to 17 and whose parents
yearly income was below 30 000 a year
do not have high-speed internet in their
households
compared to the six percent of such
households earning 75 000
or more a year this broad difference is
particularly prominent in black and
hispanic households
according to the yale university college
of medicine
many communities struggle to provide
students with the best
and competitive education other higher
income communities are able to produce
even before the corona virus outbreak
occurred
low-income schools have not met national
and state
educational objectives resulting in
restricting students future
opportunities
under-resourced schools face systematic
and ongoing challenges
related to the availability of
technology
unlike freshmen and sophomores juniors
and seniors will have a larger and more
serious impact
in getting ready for colleges no matter
how students education will present
itself
in the upcoming school year teachers
will be plagued with a question
on how they can help students come back
from such a setback and how they will be
able to stay
on track to their paths to success
five years ago bill gates ironically
predicted in
a ted talk that the failure to
prepare could allow the next epidemic to
be dramatically more devastating than
ebola
experiments in modern society every
educational institution
and research firm collects and combs
through massive amounts of data
behavioral economic and cultural
questions will be answered
and may provide guidance for the next
pandemic
almost all leaders at every level fail
to plan for the pandemic
in spite of warnings by the likes of
bill gates
have failed millions of teenagers
especially
juniors and seniors of high schools and
colleges
unlike them covered covederatines have
the biggest responsibilities
of not forgetting the lessons of kobit
and prepare to shape our society to face
future pandemics
bringing it back to tao the simple task
of planning
was overlooked by bureaucratic
complexity
the ease of wearing masks and social
distancing was missed by the presumed
cleverness of many
and it is with difficulty of the
pandemic’s impact
we make a fool of ourselves
but not all is lost many of the
questions asked in my study
came with the harsh reality of students
legitimate concerns
about being sent back to school and the
obstacles they will
face in the future due to this pandemic
despite this they have also found the
good of this pandemic
as 65 percent of students have felt more
connected with their families
and are feeling optimistic about their
future and all that is in store for them
after their completion of high school
we will perish if we don’t prevail we
are the leaders of the future
and we will prevail with the use of
common sense
that is so uncommon in today’s world
let us take a pledge that we won’t
repeat the mistakes of the present
and rather learn from them to make a
better world
for our future generations thank you