As schools continue to function using remote learning, lots of students/teachers and family members are still getting a grip on how to operate being cooped up. Mostly everyone is getting the opinions of High School and College students, but what about the young children also doing online learning. This pandemic has affected all of us but no one ever really wonders about the young kids and students and how they all feel about this craziness. Even though this is safer for everyone, especially young children, how will this affect their learning in the long run?

Ever since September of 2020, everyone has had to log onto a screen and have their cameras on them at all times, everyone’s living environments are different and it’s challenging on the teachers and students especially the children. That is another obstacle they have to overcome and that’s just another distraction in trying to get an education remotely.  The young ones are missing out on key concepts that will negatively impact their future when they aren’t able to do basic math, reading and writing, and even developing social skills. Face to face learning needs to come back soon or the ones who are missing these concepts will face further challenges. Not to mention that children seem to have a shorter attention span than older people, so sitting behind a screen for 6-7 hours must be impossible for them.

Being an older brother myself just watching them get angry and frustrated while having to be in these online classes for so long, it makes me feel for them. My younger brother said “It’s annoying being in these zoom rooms all day, I sometimes feel like I am being ignored and that my opinion doesn’t really matter, I am kind of just forced to log on everyday at 9 and can’t say anything about that”. He is going to be a freshman in 8 months and that is such a large difference, the switch over from being in middle school to high school is going to be messy. It just goes to show that in-person learning needs to return. 

The Holyoke public school system hasn’t said much about return dates, possibly late February-March and that’s still too late. It does start with the people of Holyoke though getting this city out of the “Red Zone”. We can’t put lives at danger, as future classes for students will be affected big time. Continue to wear your masks if you care about these young children’s education. This Pandemic will end, you just need to continue to follow COVID-19 protocols.