The only word that comes to mind when I think of the last few weeks of classes is “ugh.” I know I’m not alone–casual conversation with classmates and friends ensures me that while we all may be at home for all or most of the day, many of us feel busier and more stressed out than ever. It’s a mistake for professors and school staff to think that students are just being lazy or giving up on classes.
Many of us, myself included, enjoyed the rapport we had with classmates and professors and found ourselves looking forward to our classes every week. But something has changed. Online classes are for many of us simply not the same experience. Not to mention our ability to focus on essays, exams and research is understandably lower. Here’s why I think professors and school staff at the high school level need to be rethinking their syllabi and how we as students can cope.
A mental load
There are basically two versions of the COVID-19 experience. Some people are experiencing the brunt of this pandemic and facing financial struggles, dealing with the sickness or loss of a loved one or are in some other unsafe or difficult situation. Others are mostly fine and simply stuck at home for the next few months (I fall into this camp).
Sometimes, it certainly feels childish to be struggling to cope with my situation when it is considerably better than so many others’. But at the end of the day, every single student is dealing with extreme uncertainty, sadness, a loss of routine and separation from friends. It’s simply unreasonable to expect anyone to academically perform the way they normally would at a time like this. I’m incredibly lucky to be in the situation I am right now–in a safe apartment with all the food and supplies I need–but even I’m struggling to mentally process the news every day while trying to keep up with an ever-growing workload. If it was tough for me to write a 12-page paper before, it feels like a feat of Olympic mental strength now. For someone dealing with financial or medical uncertainty right now, I imagine a workload like that would be essentially impossible.
Changing the benchmarks
We need to adapt to the circumstances. The truth is that this crisis is one of the most serious and scary that we’ve collectively faced as a society and it’s simply not realistic to expect that anyone is handling their daily responsibilities as efficiently as they were before. Professors themselves are struggling to adjust to online classes–why should administration expect students to continue on like nothing has happened? The normal stress of exams and final essays are usually tempered by a sense of community, time spent studying with friends and maybe even a party or two to blow off some steam and relax. Now, all of those counterbalancing activities are gone. We also lost nearly a week of class instruction during the whirlwind in mid-March and many of us needed a further week or so to move back home or readjust. It’s a mistake to simply continue on with the traditional exams–some of which can demand a full week of studying or writing–to the detriment of students.
Changing the culture
I’ve written about this before: encouraging students to succeed academically at the detriment of their health is a huge problem in high school and college. This culture is damaging during the best of times. Many of us are struggling to find the basic motivation to care about cell structures or abstract sociological theories at a time when so much else is crowding our brains. Professors and administration need to understand that stringent attendance policies and participation-focused grades may not be feasible under these circumstances and might even be hindering students’ ability to work due to stress.
It’s important to have compassion for yourself during this time and recognize that it’s normal for motivation to be at a low ebb right now. My best advice is to take a day off completely from schoolwork and focus totally on your mental health and then try to jump back into your studies refreshed. But just remember: we’re almost done.