Consider This from NPR - How The Class Of 2023 Survived High School In A Pandemic

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

Across the country, members of the class of COVID are graduating: students who started high school before the pandemic, then spent the end of their freshman year and subsequent years navigating a new reality.And it was a very difficult path. According to many studies there has been considerable learning loss for K-12 students throughout the pandemic. And a recent study from researchers at Harvard and Stanford shows that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities.NPR's Sarah McCammon talks with three graduating high school seniors about how they made it through remote learning and coped with social isolation, and what they learned about themselves.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. It's that time of year. High school seniors across the country are filing into auditoriums and filling up gymnasiums and football bleachers, all to celebrate their accomplishments, receive their diplomas, and take in words of wisdom from their commencement speakers. I just want to extend my personal congratulations to our graduating class. This year, there's a common thread.

Your last four years have been anything but normal. The class of 2023 started high school before the pandemic and spent the end of their freshman year and subsequent years navigating a new reality. Graduation speakers this year celebrated their resilience, like Principal Rebecca Morrissey of Topeka High School in Kansas. You have persevered, surviving masks, remote and hybrid learning. Or this one from salutatorian Victoria Loredan at Wellington High School in Palm Beach, Florida. At least we can one-up our parents in stories we're telling our kids. Oh, you climb mountains and swim across a river to go to school?

I had to show up to school in a hazmat suit and dodge coughs and sneezes just to take a math test in second period. Our junior year was when things were expected to be back to normal, but they weren't. Every time the classroom phone rang, we anxiously waited to find out who was next to get sent home due to contact tracing. In Brooklyn Wood's speech at Stewart's Creek High School in Smyrna, Tennessee, the pandemic was framed as a lesson in perseverance. But this class embraced the chaos. Proof that her classmates can overcome obstacles and are destined for success. I love you, Red Hawks. Thank you. Consider this. No one in history has lived through a high school experience quite like the class of 2023. We'll hear from three graduates about

how the pandemic shaped their adolescence and what they learned from it. From NPR, I'm Sarah McCammon. It's Friday C's apply. Support for NPR and the following message come from Carnegie Corporation of New York, working to reduce political polarization through philanthropic support for education, democracy, and peace. More information at carnegie.org. It's Consider This from NPR. We're going to hear now from three high school seniors. They each had an idea of what they thought high school would be like. Like Jamori Reese of St. Louis, Missouri, whose vision was shaped by a lot of Disney Channel viewing. I was really into high school musical, so I was very excited with having the social experience.

Arnav Dharmagada of Russell, Kentucky, who was hoping for independence. I think I walked into high school really looking for more freedom and just myself and what I chose to do, and especially with the classes I chose to take. And Gabby Velasquez of Orange County, California, who went to a public middle school and was transferring to a private school as a scholarship student. I was really just expecting to get out of my shell a little bit more. I used in middle school was really an introvert. And they each described the moment in March 2020 when those plans began to unravel.

Press conferences from officials, emails from school administrators. Schools were shut down. Spring breaks were extended. At first, just for a couple of weeks, they said. And we really all thought we were going to go back after those two weeks. Instead, of course, schools went virtual. The pandemic would make a permanent mark on each of the students, beginning with those first days of remote learning. And that's where our conversation starts. How did you adjust as it became clear that this was not just an extended spring break? This was something more. For me, I would say it was difficult because I live in an apartment, and so I share a room with my two other siblings.

So it was really hard for our Wi-Fi also to maintain all three of us in class without it disconnecting. So it's very hard to actually participate because most of the time you would get like your microphone would malfunction or your video would just cut off and all that. And my school noticed it before the end of the school year. They managed to get me a hotspot that I could use to connect my laptop personally. So no, no one else was on it. And were your, you said two siblings you share with or? Yeah. Were your siblings also trying to study in that same room? Well, we were placed in different parts of the house. My brother as the oldest took the desk. My sister took the dining

room table and then I was stuck in my parents' bedroom. So I was also on top of a bed, which is kind of like, you know, on a bed you really do get comfy and don't really want to work. So it was really hard for me to actually find the motivation to actually not open another tab that wasn't for school and just actually pay attention to the teacher. This is Jamori. For myself, the way that I adjusted, honestly, it wasn't really me adjusting by choice. We were forced to learn self-discipline as we didn't have the motivation from adults in our lives to really keep going. It was very difficult because the learning experience wasn't the same.

We weren't really required to learn the way we needed to in person because our teachers could have been websites or Google. Arnav, what was your experience like? Learning turned into very much like checking boxes off to reach the end of the year. I remember most of my classes were through software. They weren't actual live classes. And it was just a game of trying to get through all the content that was required. And so I would speed through videos and I would finish assignments as quickly as possible just to say that I've done them and be done with it. I think like the joy of learning

and the social aspect of it was lost. And do you feel like you've been able, since you've gone back to in-person classes, to regain that joy of learning that you described? I think it's, yeah, I think I have regained that joy of learning, just being around people and being in community with each other. You kind of have this shared experience or the shared desire to gain knowledge and to learn. And we lost that when we transitioned to virtual learning. Jamori, what was it like for you when you transitioned back to a more typical classroom setting? So initially, my first year of going back to in-person learning was my junior year, which was 11th grade. But for me, it was pretty weird because I'd say I had like one or two days of being back in person, finding out who my teachers are.

And then I get an email along with a couple other students who were told that we had to stay home for two weeks. And all of us were like, we coordinated with each other because some of us knew who the others were. And we're like, we have to stay home. Why do you have to stay home for two weeks and all of us were like we coordinated with each other because some of us knew who the others were and we're like we have to stay home why do you have to stay home and so they didn't even tell you exactly why at first no like they had a at first they what they do is they will say our names on an intercom Jamori Reese and so and so and so and so so so come down to the main office and they told us that they were like, due to you guys being exposed, you guys have to go home. And we were like, we just got back to school. And so for me, I was like 16 hours worth of school. And now I'm back online.

How did that feel? It felt really isolating. I could tell they were trying their best to keep us safe. But I'm like one of two juniors that had to stay home for two weeks. And when we came back, everyone was happy to see us. But they were two weeks ahead of making those connections with everybody else. Then we were being stuck at home again, alone. It was such a chaotic time. I mean, Gabby, how did things unfold at your school when it was time to go back? The only good thing, kind of, was that they offered hybrid models. So it's not like we were forced to go back in person, especially for those that were really cautious about COVID.

But I really chose to go in person. Like my parents gave me the choice if I wanted to stay online or go. And I was like, I really am not learning. Like I have to go in person or else I don't know how sophomore year is going to go. So it's very good that I was able to go back in person at the same time, just since I wasn't able to develop a lot more connections because of the pandemic. It really my social life really lacked when we went back to school. Like I was really just did not talk at all. Sure, I like participated in class every now and then, but I like wasn't talking to any friends or all that. So it was really hard.

You know, you each have mentioned feeling like you were missing out or falling behind or both, you know, in some way at school, socially, academically, whatever the case may be. Do you feel like you've caught up? This is Arnav. I feel like once I returned back to school, I kind of had this reignited desire to catch up. And that's both academically and socially. So I remember seeking out harder classes and trying to get the most of that learning experience. And socially, I started going to football games and school dances just because I understood the importance of that social connection more from being deprived of it. Gabby? I feel like it was a little bit difficult.

Like, I didn't go, like, even though we had chances to go to dances, junior year and all that, I didn't choose to go to any of them until this year. So I've only gone to three. You know, like when I first, when I went to my first football game this year it was really new but at the same time I could see how everyone else around me was kind of already used to going to football games and the ambience it had so it was really new to get to just see that happen for me it was like oh damn I've been missing out on this like the past four years like I don't know why I didn't do this sooner I agree with both of you guys um if it was a different urgency to catch up academically was more of a struggle for me because I was not really required to learn to learn online for me I said the hardest thing was like my math class because I was on an accelerated path with math and then I

ended up taking a normal math in my senior year because it was really difficult for me to stay on my accelerated path as I was not getting back into my learning quickly like I didn't learn as quick as I used to when it comes to math because there was a time period I didn't have to learn. This of course was all happening because of COVID, coronavirus. And a couple of you have mentioned the fear of, you know, getting sick or transmitting something to somebody else. On top of all of the school-related stress, the virus itself was a concern for a lot of people. You know, there was a point at the height of the pandemic where there were thousands of people dying every day. How much of a worry was that for

each of you? For me, this is going to sound a little bit ignorant, I guess, but I was told that COVID was happening in freshman year, but they weren't really making a focus on the virus itself. Like it was all school. Like, okay, now we're going to be in school learning. And it took me connecting with my family members again to see how much it really impacted the people that were nearby for me to see how intense it was. I had some family members pass away from COVID. And so I think my panic happened a little bit later. It was a little bit delayed, I guess, because it took me having to see that it can happen to me and it can happen to people I'm close to. Yeah.

Gabby? Well, I was kind of the same when we were still. Yeah. Gabby? Well, I was kind of the same when we were still in school, like until summer break, I was focused on school. Once we were like out of classes and all that, I was really scared to the point I did not like having the news on because that was really kind of all you heard about how many people were dying every day because of the virus. Even my mom noticed, like I was getting just so anxious to the point I was having some anxiety attacks every now and then just because I'm just like, when is this going to happen to me? Like, I wasn't thinking like if it was like, is it like, when is it going to happen?

I'm sorry. It was so scary. It was scary. Arnav, how about you? I remember feeling frustrated a lot, especially towards the end. Once we had our vaccines available and once testing was available, I remember feeling frustrated because, you know, all this sadness, all the suffering, we had endured it and now we finally had a solution. But it didn't seem like people were taking it. There was a lot of apprehensiveness and it was just frustrating to know that there's a solution there, but people aren't willing to do it. You know, I know each of you are headed to college. As you think back on high school, your unique historic high school experience, is there anything that came out of

this experience that you see as maybe positive or just that taught you something that you'll take into the future? I think one thing that I valued about the pandemic and virtual learning was the idea that you had flexibility in what you could do and how you wanted to manage your time. And I think that flexibility is really similar to how college classes are going to run, where you're on your own and you manage your time outside of class by yourself. It made me more responsible and it made me more prepared, I think, for college. Well, I also agree with what Arnaud said.

Like it really did make us, it for sure made me more independent from my parents or more than I usually was already so it's really nice but hard just seeing my parents just realize that I didn't really need their help anymore like I could figure out everything which is gonna help in college because I won't have like people handing me resources like from now on I'm gonna have to be like looking for them. I agree with what both of you guys said. You were forced to have independence. And I think because all of us were kind of forced to be thrown in water, it was kind of like a sink or swim.

And all of us learned how to swim, you know. And also for me, I don't know if this is the same for you guys, but I became more one with myself. I was able to find out who I was because I had so much time with who I was. And so I'm walking in confident in my ability to be able to soar because I was able to soar through this. We're like, okay, give it to us. We know how to handle ourselves because we had to handle ourselves before.

That was Jamori Reese of St. Louis, Missouri, Gabby Velasquez of Orange County, California, and Arnav Dharmagadha of Russell, Kentucky. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Sarah McCammon. Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org.