34 COVID: The Birth of the Laziest Academics

Anonymous

When the first closures happened due to COVID, I was a 15-year-old residing in my hometown of Hamilton in my second semester of the 10th grade.  

As a boy who is the son of a professor who has studied microbiology, I recall my COVID experience being extremely restricted. My family and I went into full lockdown, meaning that we would not go into or out of the house unless it was essential. Anytime we needed to step out of the house, we adhered to the protocols that were advised, such as wearing masks, keeping a 6-foot distance, and sanitizing our hands frequently. Some of these precautions were as extreme as letting our groceries sit out and “quarantine” or carefully sanitizing/cleaning many of the goods that were purchased. 

The greatest challenge I initially faced was the realization of all the time lost not coming back and being unable to enjoy the best years of a high school experience doing the things I enjoy with people I care about. I grew up playing basketball and volleyball at high levels of competition and had not known a life without this competitive and challenging component of my life. Sports had taught me as a kid to manage my time well with academics, social, and extracurricular activity. Now, without the tournaments on weekends to look forward to or practices every day; I began to lack the incentive to hold myself to the same high standard that I had previously done. Something good that came out of COVID for me was being able to adapt to the lacking social component of my life. I have had many friends who lived in the Toronto area that I never got to see often or talk to pre–pandemic. However, with everyone being forced indoors all these friends found a common place for social interaction with videogames. Although this may seem counterintuitive and introverted; I believe games became an avenue for genuine social interaction, especially for teenage boys, that may have mimicked our parents’ generation staying on the phone for such extended periods of time talking. I became closer with so many people that I know I would not have otherwise had an opportunity for.

Since something like this was so unprecedented at the time, there were no precautions in place if any school closures happened. For the remainder of my grade 10 year, classes were indefinitely on hold for the semester, and our grades were based solely on tests or assignments that took place within the first month. This meant that any assigned work or quizzes did not contribute to our final grades and thus it reflected how students, including myself, approached academia. After the grade 10 semester, schools and school boards found ways to better incorporate a hybrid learning style for high school students. Classes had become live meetings on the emerging app called “Zoom”. This encouraged students to at least do a bare minimum of turning on their laptops and attending a class where they learned course materials. However, for many this just became another way to be lazy, and students just turned on their computers to join the call, shut off their microphones and cameras and do whatever they wanted to do. This was an easy loophole that unfortunately went unpunished. There was no real way to prevent cheating because tests were still not in formats that could be monitored by our school systems. From my personal experience I remember taking major tests with two of my other smarter friends and dividing up and reviewing answers to get the highest scores possible. Unfortunately for others, this meant an easy way to be exploited for intellect; students who were not so academically inclined did no work and just took answers from others. I think this was extremely detrimental to all kids who were learning at the time. It taught many to be lazy and just take the shortcut when it came to academics. I know university was a wakeup call for students my age as they couldn’t get away with the same things that they tried to do in high school. But overall, it perpetuated the idea that we didn’t necessarily need to spend the long hours of work to complete a task or study. This is why we see many students who are still unable to think and complete work on their own. With the rising prevalence of Artificial Intelligence in our society, I believe many people are going back to the same laziness that was seen in highschoolers experiencing the COVID pandemic.

(Connect your Covid experience to a course theme)

Blame (prejudice). The COVID experience was full of an extremely harmful rhetoric against Asian individuals, specifically Chinese people. I have many friends who are Asian and remember many of their personal stories being told to me on how they were treated differently in public and given unfair treatment and had even witnessed it firsthand in the later stages of the pandemic when I was in grade 11. I was riding the city bus in Hamilton with my friend, who is an Asian–Canadian individual, and recall him being taunted by an individual who pretended to cough at him and made comments along the lines of “you people always eat weird shit,” which likely refers to a rumor that the pandemic started due to the consumption of a “bat soup.” Although the person was likely not sober or in a good mental state, this harmful message is what was spread to many people consuming news and media of the time. In the news, there were frequent mentions of President Donald Trump addressing COVID as “The China Virus” as one example. When major news sources and individuals perpetuate a harmful message, it is unfortunately bound to become something acted upon by uninformed or ignorant individuals. Overall, in my experience the blame placed on Asian individuals caused a harmful and very racist stereotype to be placed on a plethora of Asian cultures and communities.