Covid-19 impact on education

Classrooms around the nation may be empty but the learning has had to continue.

The coronavirus has seriously impacted the way children in elementary through high school learn around the nation, forcing a lot of their learning to go on online.

Just because the world is ruled by technology today does not mean everyone has access to it. Dr. Michelle Martin Burke, an educational consultant was quick to say that online learning is not the answer for everyone.

In many cases, “there's only 1 phone and the parents have to go to work so they have to take the phone or if they do have an iPad, I’ve heard they don’t know how to use the iPad and the parents are not there to help them,” said Dr. Martin Burke, arguing that just because technology is present in a child’s life they still need some sort of personal instruction.

She said online learning works great in some neighborhoods but others, she notices work better with physical worksheets.

“They started making paper packets and the parents came, and the parents turned them in, it doesn't mean families won't do it, it just looks different, you just can't say, “everyone go online,” I think you need to have options,” said Dr. Martin Burke about families that were not using online resources but had no trouble working with physical paper.

Andrea Kelley, a high school teacher also pointed out issues with online learning. She said many students needed to get jobs to help out their families and a full workload was not realistic. “Imagine that, plus you have six kids in the house trying to hop on that spotty wi-fi,” she said about students who had to work and share technology with other people in the household.

Having students home does not guarantee that they have more time to complete school work, teachers and administrators have noticed the opposite, especially in lower income areas.

Many kids old enough to work have had to get jobs to help their parents out with bills, others need to stay home and babysit and younger kids who need a parents assistance to complete school work are not given the needed attention because their parents are busy working.

Both Dr. Martin Burke and Mrs. Kelley agree that it’s not fair to expect a lot from parents and students but hope they aren’t inactive either.

“Obviously, my kids are not doing nearly as much as they would if they were in school but the idea is just to do enough so that we keep our brains going, we’re in maintenance instead of growth, that's my thinking with both my students and my kids, we’re trying to not back slide but we probably will not make as big of gains as we would have,” said Kelley.

Dr. Martin Burke said that when school starts again things will have to be different. She hopes parent-teacher conferences offer parents with the resources that would allow them to support their children and their education if this were to happen again.

“You can’t expect something from somebody if you haven't given them the resources and the training that they need,” she said.

Regardless of all, Mrs. Kelley says the pandemic has shown her sides of her students she’s grateful to know.

“It’s been an interesting aspect to see more into the lives of each other and like we’re separate but we’re also seeing more realistically what people's lives are like, so that's been pretty cool,” she said.