Working Hypothesis 1

The devastating effects of COVID-19 on the classes of 2020 and 2021, such as poor online learning, institutions being shut down and staying inside constantly, led to the decline in their mental health, social skills, and becoming unmotivated to continue with their education.

Working Hypothesis 2
COVID-19 was beneficial in certain aspects to high schoolers because it improved their health care attitude, brought them closer to their families, and prepared them in case something like this pandemic happens again in the future.

Purposeful Summaries

The Impact of COVID-19 On High School Students

COVID eliminated a normal life for all of high school students, in so many different ways. High school is a learning environment and social environment, and this pandemic kept kids from having a normal daily routine and the motivation to do their work. The constant disappointment of canceling important events such as prom or graduation, was heart breaking. As Mary Kreitz states, “They’re aware that many colleges and universities that have shut down and wonder how this will affect their own future plans. If schools remain closed for the rest of the spring, students in their senior year will likely forfeit their last shot at a championship sports season, miss their last chance to perform with the choir or never get to perform in the play they’ve been rehearsing for so long.” (Kreitz). Mary explains how these students practiced for these type of events for so long, and the fact that COVID killed their chances of being able to engage in these, broke their hopes and motivations.

COVID also shut down the ability of students to stay engaged with their sports and even their clubs. “Many students enjoy participating in sports, music, school plays, robotics and a variety of other activities. Participation in these activities helps students to be more attractive applicants to colleges, universities and future employers. More importantly though, participation in these activities is an important part of students’ identities.” (Kreitz). Sports helped kids gain scholarships, relieve anxiety, and really let them find themselves as a student-athlete. It was also an amazing source of exercise, and there are a limited amount of workouts the average person can do in their house. Since some of these teenagers couldn’t play for the junior and possibly senior seasons, they lost potential scholarships.

Overall, the pandemic took away students social activities, a normal senior year, and a normal high school education. Their anxiety was increased because of the unknown, and it led to the decline in their mental health and motivation because of minimal social interaction and poor teaching.

Kreitz, M. (2021). The impact of COVID-19 on high school students. Retrieved from https://www.childandadolescent.org/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-high-school-students/

How is COVID-19 Affecting High School Students?

COVID-19 has impacted students of all ages, but the most major of its impacts have been on high schoolers. It has disrupted their daily lives, increased their anxiety, and even make them feel unprepared for life.

It has been reported that 60% of US teens reported worry about a non-parental family member getting sick, and 59% indicated anxiety about a parent or guardian getting sick. Only 10% indicated they had no concern about COVID-19. Before this, the average teenager didn’t have to worry about stuff like this; they worried about what sport they wanted to play and where they wanna go to college and what their future job would be. They would worry about the happy things in life and be excited for all of the exciting events that high school has to offer.

The fear of the unknown is what ruined the hopes of students. Rules from the CDC about openings changed almost every day; one day prom was happening and the next it wasn’t. These unknowns create a general feeling of anxiety, and dealing with that anxiety for months on hand has a negative impact on students, leading to problems with depression. The mental of these once, happy students has not plummeted.

The pandemic changed education as well. Online learning was established as the new normal as the pandemic began its course; zoom meetings every day and just simple tasks put out onto google classroom as homework. Many students began to feel extremely unprepared for college because this new way of learning wasn’t benefitting them in any way. A survey confirmed that 32% of high school seniors reported that the pandemic reduced the likelihood that they would enroll in college, and 40% indicated they did not plan to enroll in college because of the pandemic. Many reported fear that they are falling behind because of online learning. This is so unfortunate and will effect their future and how they plan to proceed in life.

Riverside Military Academy. (2021). How is COVID-19 affecting high school students? Retrieved from https://www.riversidemilitary.com/news-detail?pk=1386421

Modelling the long-run learning impact of the Covid-19 learning shock: Actions to (more than) mitigate loss

There are many studies being done or that have been done to support the fact that the pandemic is putting long term effects on students’ education. One of the recent studies being done has showed that even school closures that are not long term still have negatives effects on students’ learning. . Andrabi et al. (2020) analyse the impact of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake on children’s learning four years later by comparing households that were close to the fault line with similar households that were farther away and not affected by the quake. Schools in the affected area were closed for an average of 14 weeks, a little more than 3 months. However, four years later children in the affected areas were not just three months behind, they were the learning equivalent of 1.5 years of schooling behind. This study also showed that students were learning less each year after because of the closure. The article also produced multiple graphs showing data from each grade and how it was declining every year after the shut-down.

Students test scores have fallen significantly, their motivation has depleted, and this pandemic will have the hardest impact on their future and how successful they will be.

Kaffenberger, M. (2021). _{Modelling the long-run learning impact of the covid-19 learning shock: Actions to (more than) mitigate loss}. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059320304855

Schools, skills, and learning: The impact of COVID-19 on education

Though the covid pandemic is a health disaster, it is also a social, mental health, and education disaster as well. In-person schooling helps kids develop so many great life and social skills that they will use forever. It helps them socialize, teaches them how to have good time management, and motivates them. Missing school means missing a lesson in your classes, and having to make up for that lost time. Studies have shown that even just ten days of extra schooling significantly raises scores on tests of the use of knowledge (‘crystallized intelligence’) by 1% of a standard deviation. So if students miss that same amount of time, their test scores could be depleting as a result. Online learning makes it easy to slack off and simply cheat your way through a class, which results in retaining almost nothing.

This disaster has also severely affected the college graduates. It is putting a hold on their final exams, and the last part of their learning . The studies show that poor market conditions at labour market entry cause workers to accept lower paid jobs, and that this has permanent effects for the careers of some.This is extremely unfortunate and these students who have put so much hard work into this schooling, could end up the exact opposite of where they wanted to be.

Burgess, S., & Sievertsen, H. (2020). Schools, skills, and learning: The impact of COVID-19 on education
Retrieved from https://voxeu.org/article/impact-covid-19-education

“I Hate This”: A Qualitative Analysis of Adolescents’ Self-Reported Challenges During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented multiple obstacles and challenges for the adolescents in school because of quarantining.

Kids around these ages love in-person interaction; it lets them grow as a person and to develop social and relationship skills. Being quarantined takes away those experiences and can even increase their risk for psychological disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Isolation will continue to have negative impacts on social skills and mental health. Depression risk in young adults increases 3 times adolescents experiencing social isolation, and experiencing loneliness during this period is associated with poor mental health up to nine years later . On top of newly developing mental health issues, those who already had poor mental health are having increasingly worst symptoms as well. The need for therapy and psychiatry visits are at an all time high, but the pandemic still continues to limit the amount of doctors appointments allowed. So its okay for old patients to keep coming in, but we can’t accept any new, extremely depressed/anxious patients? Do we just let them suffer?

The piece written in the “Journal of Adolescent Health” goes into detail of studies being done that ask students what their three biggest challenges were currently during the pandemic. It was found that academics and work habits were the largest challenge out of all of the ones depicted on the tables made. The rest after that were mental health, physical health, friends, family, routine, social connection, covid rules, future, socioeconomic, important events, exposure of covid, and technology.

It was surprising to found that social connection and future were not as high on the list, but many different students were asked in the survey so it can bring in a lot of different results. Still though, it proves that COVIDs biggest effects were on academics, mental health, and the students’ future overall.

Scott, S., Rivera, K., Rushing, E., Manczak, E., Rozek, C. & Doom, J. (2021). _{“I hate this”: A qualitative analysis of adolescents’ self-reported challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic}. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1054139X20306789?casa_token=DoCOkz0umzIAAAAA:ut41vzU_JXzREJ_GqxgW5_LSl9EBq8S47l81Gtb4haJhMrInwjrmfZa4AkBjv6jmNGTHy7ZTAA

Topic for Smaller Paper

1. Definition Argument

COVID-19, is first and foremost a health crisis, but also a social crisis. It ruined the senior year of the classes of 2020 and 2021 by shutting institutions down, introducing isolation, and using poor online teaching which caused these students’ mental health to be worsened, to feel unprepared for their future, and decrease their social skills. Since the pandemic is continuous and ongoing, these students are still feeling the consequences of this and will probably feel them for the rest of their lives.

2. Cause/effect Argument

Staying isolated, even when not in a pandemic, can have multiple negative affects on any high school student. Being within the same building for multiple weeks on end can make people feel crazy or even just lonely. But with COVID-19 going on, it makes people fear to be around others, but also after a long amount of time, makes these teenagers very anxious. Not knowing what their future will look like, or if they will go to college or have to take a gap year is very anxiety-driving. This isolation, which also contains poor teaching, leading students to feel behind, causes depression. This long-term isolation is causing these high schoolers to feel extremely not ready to move onto college or a career, and feeling depressed because the rules change every day, causing multiple big events to be shut down.

3. Rebuttal Argument

The pandemic, although very serious, has given high schoolers many benefits as well. First and foremost, the pandemic has caused many students to start improving their health care attitude, since many go to see a doctor whenever they feel ill and some even chose to get vaccinated. Before these times, many students didn’t feel the need to see the doctor every time they felt ill, and didn’t believe in getting vaccines. It has also let them choose better diets and to wear a mask and sanitize, to make sure they are keeping themselves safe. COVID has also brought students closer to their families since they are home a lot more often now, which is very good for their relationship skills. Being close to your family can make you feel happy again also. Finally, if anything like this pandemic, or even worse was to happen in the future, many high school students would know how to handle it because they would have experience and therefore be more prepared. No one was prepared for this pandemic, but now if another health crisis pops up in the future, they will be prepared for what is thrown at them.

Current State of Research

When I began my research process about a week ago, I did not think I would find many sources to support my hypothesis and to give me a better understanding on how negatively COVID impacted the youth. After David showed me how to use google scholar, it actually help me find multiple scholarly sources that had super great information to back up my claims and had multiple studies with their data within them. As i continue my research, I am confident that I will find more articles to support my hypothesis and that my essay will be heavily supported.