Post-covid How Covid has changed our school lives and what happened in the past years by Noemi Hohn
We all know that a lot has changed in school since Covid happened, but some aspects could be reflected on a little more. We all know that Covid did change a lot when it comes to our school lives. We had to adjust to having classes online from home at the beginning of the pandemic and even now, while we are finally back in school, the pandemic still influences a big part of our daily lives. When reflecting back on the past year and a half, there are many things that swirled through our heads. But what are the things that changed the most? What did we learn during the last months? Is there anything that we learned to appreciate more? As freshman Anna Krohn said, “I liked not having to sit there every second. Lunch break was easier. I got a longer lunch and I was able to work at my own pace. But I like in-person school better because I can socialise and it is easier to get information down. I like to be able to participate in clubs and be busy.“ Covid showed us how important it can be for us to go to school even when it just means seeing our friends and getting to talk to them during lunch. The one thing we most likely all learned throughout the pandemic is how important our social contacts are. “I definitely learned not to take things for granted because I didn’t realize how much the small things meant,” said Souhani Amin, senior. Although it was nice to go back to the way we lived before the pandemic, many of us have changed during the pandemic and made a character development. Being at home for most of the time and only really seeing our close friends and family has changed many of us just like having school at home and having to organize everything on our own. “I definitely had to learn how to use your resources and try to figure stuff out yourself since the teachers can’t help you”, said Anna Krohn, freshman. But what does it mean?
It is a scary thought to think that we can’t really compare these changes every single one of us has been through with something else. There is nothing similar to the past year. But most of us have learned important things during the pandemic, such as to schedule your work time better or learn something new about yourself while spending all this time at home or just simply appreciating how much we need to spend time with other people, or the contrary, that some of us shouldn’t just rely completely on others but concentrate on ourselves. So yes, Covid has changed a lot but we can only learn from it. Before Covid, we never really thought about what could happen and that our daily lives could change that much now, looking back, we should be proud that we managed to adapt to a completely new situation and learned to appreciate the things that are really important and to which it comes down to at the end: friends and family. The biggest open-ended question people ask themselves after this unusual past year is: ”Will it ever go back to how it was before Covid started?” The opinions are split most of the time. Dania Sbinati, junior, said, “Yes, definitely. Maybe by graduation or maybe even by senior year,” and “I think eventually it will but it probably will be a while as Souhani Amin, senior said. According to USA Today, the percentage of known COVID-19 cases in the US is still rising and Virginia is one of the places with more cases. The fact is we are all in this together and at the end nobody can change what will happen as long as we don’t try to make the best out of it. Without the pandemic, we never would have realized how important some parts that we took for granted before are for us. We have to be more thankful for the last year and see everything from a more optimistic perspective.
26 u the viewpoint u november | december 2021 u
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