Has Covid Made Schools Lazy
When covid made a debut appearance in March of 2020, students and teachers stopped going over new content and only reviewed what they started at home. No new content was being taught from March to May.
School started back in August, whether students were at home or back in the classrooms. Most teachers had to go back through the curriculum and review some content from previous years with their students. Grading and standards became more lenient as students were fluctuating between in person and distance learning. There were many instances of in-person students having to return to non-traditional instruction when coronavirus cases in the county rose.
Some students who stayed at home during the 2020-2021 school year took advantage of the lack of expectations. They had access to multiple resources that kids in-person did not, such as finding answers they may not have been able to figure out themselves. As a result, these students did not really have to work for the education they need, and they may have lost the necessary knowledge they retained. According to Brookings.edu, “In almost all grades, the majority of students made some learning gains in both reading and math since the COVID-19 pandemic started, though math gains were smaller in 2020 relative to the gains students in the same grades made in the winter 2019-fall 2019 period.”
School-age children have not been challenged as much as they were before covid came about, and it is showing. Grades are not as high as they once were, as students may still be taking advantage of lower expectations and have not properly comprehended the content.
It can be seen on social media platforms such as Instagram or TikTok where a lot of teenagers talk about how covid decreased their motivation in school, whether that be because there was not as much work, or they felt like they were not learning anything anyway. An article about the experience of students and online learning from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov states, “Maladaptation to online learning could expose inexperienced students to various vulnerabilities, including decrements in academic performance (Molnar et al., 2019), feelings of isolation (Song et al., 2004), and lack of learning motivation (Muilenburg & Berge, 2005).”
However, it is not all on the students. Teachers were expected to create lessons for students both in-person and at home last year. Essentially, our educators had twice the workload they normally have as they had to grade things separately depending on where the kids were. On top of that, teachers had to keep up with whether students were at home or in school. In having to make all these plans, some classes fell short of proper content due to overworking. Many people, students and teachers alike, haven’t readjusted to the normal workload after being let off easily for over a year.
Everything has been a lot easier than it has been in previous years. Students and teachers alike may now have less determination and motivation towards heavier workloads.
