After all high schools went to virtual learning in the past school year students had to adjust to learning at home. For many students they lost a lot more motivation when they were at home. Now that they are back in school students are able to get back on their feet and jump back into their old routines; however, that does not mean that they will.
After a whole year and a half of not needing to physically be at school, all students are now required to attend school especially if they still want to be involved in certain activities and sports.
Being in school virtually allowed students to not take their classes as seriously as they would if they were in class in person. So now that students are back in school, it might be hard to return back to their old routines. The workload, now that students are back at school, might feel overwhelming because during virtual learning teachers had to find new ways to teach their material and most of those times it was easier than it was before. It was very easy for students to get around the assignments without fully understanding the material.
It is hard to trust students when it is so easy to just log into the class for attendance, but teachers could not do anything to motivate them to actually participate or stay attentive. Some might say that with virtual learning, students and teachers lost a year and that caused them to fall behind.
Going back to normal school has been a shock to many students, especially for those who never attended school when it was in cohorts. So now the workloads are back to normal and there isn’t an easy way out for them. Students are expected to get to school on time and to keep their grades up.
Even though teachers and administrators are trying their best to be considerate about these factors that come with trying to go back to normal, they obviously cannot control students’ motivation and willingness to do any of the work. It may be different for each grade level and of course it varies between students, but they don’t have that drive they might have had before that pandemic. The pandemic caused a lot of students to slack off in many areas, but especially in school. Not everyone has the same drive or motivation or can easily access it after a year of virtual learning.
So many factors can play into this like the student might have realized that school isn’t as important to them anymore or the pandemic could have affected them in a negative way whether they lost a loved one or maybe after being on lockdown for so long it negatively affected their mental health.
It is unrealistic to expect students to jump back into their old routines and mindsets after all that happened in the past year. It is important to consider the change in dynamic compared to last year and that it is important to be patient with students until they become more comfortable with attending school as it was normally.
