Difficulties for Education
By Dylan Yoder
Public education at the high school level has been a bit of an overlooked problem in the grand scheme of things. Ever since online school has been the go-to method of education, the majority of students have been reporting a drop in grade levels. The reason for this? The absence of motivation. Where before, teachers could hold students accountable for getting work in on time, now teachers have to rely on the students to self-discipline and hold themselves accountable. As a further testament to this theory, graduating high school students are graduating into an uncertain world. They don’t know when COVID will disappear, or if it ever will, which makes their future, a gamble, but, just as every trial that humanity has faced, this too must come to pass.
In current events, Haven High School just recently had its graduation, sending a new class into the world to do whatever they so desire. Luckily for them, high schools across the state have managed to get their graduations in sometime during the summer, whereas most college graduations aren’t taking place at all. Instead, the collegiate graduating class of 2020 must attend graduation online, like all other things, their massive number of students being the decisive blow. This left many college graduates unsatisfied with how they left their respective schools. Hopefully, that same feeling won’t need to be felt by future graduating classes. As for the High school graduations, well, as you might have guessed, they have been and will be as clean as possible for fear of spreading the virus.
In addition to difficulty organizing graduations and such, public and private schools around the world are now faced with the nigh-impossible task of correctly deciding how to open schools back up again. It has been obvious that students have suffered in their studies without teacher guidance, but without the removal of the virus, it seems we won’t be able to return to our past ways. Thus, schools are doing everything in their power to reopen and provide safe learning spaces for students. With a bit of grit on our side and the luck of the wind, the next school year will begin a path back to normalcy.
High school students have hope with them if nothing else. In 1918 the Spanish Influenza rocked the world, it was a respiratory virus that had spread to pandemic level influence. It was terrible, in terms of the effects the virus had, it was not unlike the virus we are facing today. It lasted only about 15 months at the pandemic level. Which doesn’t sound great at first, but to people who thought we might never get over COVID, rest assured that we might see the end of its influence yet. This means that hopefully, students in the future might meet a boisterous job market rather than the deflated one we have today. While it does seem strange to compare two viral infections that occurred 100 years apart, at least it gives us hope that one day this virus will pass too.
Just as we all wish for the end of COVID we must also keep up our own wellbeing, and take care not to get discouraged. To put it as the wise man would say, Life is sometimes like a dark tunnel, it doesn’t always seem to be going anywhere, but if you just keep on going, eventually, the tunnel will end.
