67 Learning Through Lockdown

Zoe

When Covid first hit, I was in Grade 11, living and going to school in Mississauga, Ontario. I was 16 years old, living with my parents and my younger sister. What I remember the most about the beginning of Covid was how quickly everything happened. One day it was a distant news story, and then the next day, schools were closing and anxiety was growing. I first heard about the lockdowns in my music class while we were practicing for our spring performance. I noticed everyone looking at their phones so I checked mine too and saw the announcement that schools would be closed for 2 weeks after March break. Our teacher reassured us that although this disrupted our rehearsal schedule, we would pick it back up and have a great performance when we returned. Unfortunately, we didn’t go back to school until the following year.

Living in the densely populated Peel region meant strict lockdown procedures. My dad was able to work from home, so he was stuck there with my younger sister and I as we adapted to online school. My mom, however, worked in a hospital and had to continue going in, which was initially scary, but she stayed vigilant to make sure we wouldn’t get sick. Looking back, its difficult to distinguish between the different phases of lockdown, however I remember that they were fairly strict from the beginning. The transition from being out of the house for 8+ hours a day to suddenly only being able to step outside for walks or to sit on our porch was jarring. The pandemic changed a lot in our day to day lives—big things like not being able to participate in important life events, and small things like figuring out how to safely get groceries.

Lockdown also had a big impact on social interactions. Being in high school, especially one that required a long commute, meant spending 10+ hours a day out of the house, engaging with friends and classmates. Lockdowns changed this significantly, as we were prevented from spending any time with others. Luckily, living in the digital age, we had many ways to stay connected. The platform Discord became our new social hub, as it was one of the only platforms at the time that allowed calls with over 10 people. Lunch chats in the cafeteria and after-school hang outs turned into spending all hours of the day and night on calls to help combat the isolation. Study sessions, movie nights and gaming became our new way to hang out. While it wasn’t the same as our real-life interactions, it kept us from feeling disconnected from our friends at an age where friends mean everything.

A key theme from the course that connects with the experience of Covid is blame. In times of fear, crisis and uncertainty, people often look for someone or something to hold responsible. During Covid, blame was directed at many different groups of people for various reasons, and the consequences were significant. From the beginning, most people knew that Covid originated from the wet markets in China. While outbreaks can happen anywhere for various reasons, some people used this as an opportunity to express their prejudice against individuals of Asian descent. It was shocking to see a whole group of people being blamed for something completely out of their control. I can remember the first time I heard the perpetuation of this harmful rhetoric from the voices of powerful figures, such as Trump calling it the “China Virus” in his tweets and press conferences. His knowing contribution to this narrative helped to reinforce stigma and led to an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes.

There was a different kind of blame put on policymakers at the time for their handling of lockdowns and safety regulations. Some criticized them for implementing lockdowns and restrictions too late, while others believed that they were completely unnecessary. Similar divisions surrounded masking, as some believed that the government was too strict, while others thought there weren’t enough protective measures in place.

The pandemic fuelled widespread blame towards many different groups of people, and justified or not, it drove people further and further apart at a time when unity and cooperation were essential for overcoming the pandemic.

Virtual schooling was a challenging adjustment for everyone; students, teachers and even parents. The end of my Grade 11 year, my entire Grade 12 year and my first semester of university were entirely online. In high school this was especially challenging, as we had to navigate this transition while trying to stay motivated to learn and maintain good grades, while also trying to enjoy the ending to this chapter of our lives. My Grade 12 year had some big changes, as my school introduced Quadmesters to adapt to online learning. Quadmesters meant that instead of learning 4 courses over 4 months, we were learning 2 courses in 2 months. Learning the entire course content in half of the time was difficult, especially in the year that is meant to prepare us for our futures, as it was an entirely new way of learning.

We could tell that teachers were working their hardest to make online learning as close to the traditional school experience as possible, but it was undeniably different. While I appreciated joining class calls from my home and seeing the faces of my teachers and classmates, the inability to converse with each other and to be connected had an impact on our learning. In addition, the kinds of studying and testing that we had prepared for throughout our school lives suddenly changed, in the most crucial year for our academic futures. It became more and more difficult to maintain the enthusiasm for learning, which is a feeling I think I shared with other students and even some teachers.

Another challenge surrounding virtual schooling that can sometimes go unnoticed is the amount of time that we all had to spend on our devices. We were spending upwards of 6 hours of screen time just on school during the day, not to mention any other homework or studying that also occurred online. On top of that, the only form of communication with people outside of our families at this time was through our devices. This meant that the majority of our waking time was spent sitting on our laptops or our phones. Although relying on technology was somewhat inevitable, I believe that online school exacerbated this for kids my age and younger, who otherwise would have spent more time outdoors or away from devices. I think that this aspect of online school impacted our lives in big ways, as excessive screen time has been linked to decreased attention span and self control and increased distractibility. I’ve seen this in myself and people around me as I now feel more attached to my phone and struggle to focus for extended periods.

Although moving school online was the only option to still provide students with an education, it still has lasting negative impacts on students and teachers alike, fundamentally changing the ways in which we learn and interact with each other.