Still Recovering from a Year Lost in Isolation?

It’s been a wild three years if you think about. 

In March of 2020 school buildings closed for what would end up being a year and did school online.

In March of 2021 students and teachers came back to school buildings on a hybrid schedule that still had them learning online.

In March of 2022 masks which at times created communication barriers between students and teachers and felt like the last pandemic restriction was lifted.

So here we are in March of 2023 three years later back to some sense of normalcy from before March 2020. Yet many would agree life changed in those three years. Some things including people’s perspectives and behaviors are different as a result of the past three years.

Kenwood junior Line J shares,  “There definitely has been some changes socially and academically. For me, there hasn’t been much change socially, but I have seen that it is harder for  a lot of people to leave their houses. We’ve gotten so used to being inside and using electronics as the only way of communication (for about 2 years) so now it is hard to put our phones down and actually socialize in person. There is just less motivation and sometimes trying to connect with someone in person now feels awkward.”

It seems as if some much has changed. Students struggled with school and keeping up in a virtual environment and as a result some feel as if they’re still playing catch up. Kenwood student Gabby F shares, “It personally impacted me still because I picked up poor learning habits making it difficult and harder for me to focus.”

Junior Daniel O feels like he’s seen a change too in the habits of his generation. “I  feel like the lost year of the pandemic caused my generation to lose their motivation to strive and work hard,” he adds.

Did we pick up bad habits we are still struggling to break? Are we still recovering from the mental toll of isolation and having to quickly adapt our lifestyles or the fear of getting sick or losing jobs or houses?

Here we are in March 2023 and it seems we’re still trying to pick up where we left off three years ago.