Anonymous, 17 – West Haven, CT

With the current situation about Covid-19, many people of all ages have been impacted significantly. Hearing the voices of many people is important in our society today, especially when this deadly pandemic is affecting everywhere and everyone. Listening to others and understanding their struggles is one way we can lessen the scale of the impact the virus has done to us. In this current moment, the most challenging I had encountered was keeping my family and of course myself healthy and safe. Still being a senior in high school, I have to balance out workloads, upon workloads of school assignments my teachers would give me, along with doing daily chores around the house, keeping it germ free and clean. Keeping myself mentally prepared for AP exams coming up, worrying about family members getting sick, and having shortage of cleaning supplies and food were all too stressful for me, personally. 

To add a little backstory, my mom, who is a nurse, suffered through the coronavirus for three weeks total. By the second week, she was hospitalized and I had to survive in my home alone for two weeks. That challenged me mentally. I was worried and scared for my mom, being home alone for that long also challenged me. After recovering from a fever and coughing, I struggled to get out of bed, I would sleep almost all day, I lost my appetite and would barely eat. All I was concerned about was my mom’s safety because she is all that I have. I am so glad she is home and recovering well, but my concerns never ended. Online school/distant learning has taken a toll on my academics. I can no longer keep up with the workload, sometimes it feels like teachers are giving too much work. For an assignment that would only take a few minutes takes me about an hour to do now. I miss going to school and having my friends around because that’s what got me through the school day. Balancing schoolwork and keeping my family safe has been the most challenging for me during this pandemic. 

To address the challenge I faced, I think it’s best if teachers would understand the students’ struggles. We had to automatically adjust to the new online school system with no transition into it, but also some students aren’t just meant for online/distance learning. Giving us massive amounts of assignments with a short due date, puts a huge toll on the students stressfully. A student’s life, during this crisis, shouldn’t revolve around keeping grades up and assignments done. We should be more focused on keeping our mental health intact and keeping our families safe.

Anonymous, 17 – West Haven, CT

With the current situation about Covid-19, many people of all ages have been impacted significantly. Hearing the voices of many people is important in our society today, especially when this deadly pandemic is affecting everywhere and everyone. Listening to others and understanding their struggles is one way we can lessen the scale of the impact the virus has done to us. In this current moment, the most challenging I had encountered was keeping my family and of course myself healthy and safe. Still being a senior in high school, I have to balance out workloads, upon workloads of school assignments my teachers would give me, along with doing daily chores around the house, keeping it germ free and clean. Keeping myself mentally prepared for AP exams coming up, worrying about family members getting sick, and having shortage of cleaning supplies and food were all too stressful for me, personally. 

To add a little backstory, my mom, who is a nurse, suffered through the coronavirus for three weeks total. By the second week, she was hospitalized and I had to survive in my home alone for two weeks. That challenged me mentally. I was worried and scared for my mom, being home alone for that long also challenged me. After recovering from a fever and coughing, I struggled to get out of bed, I would sleep almost all day, I lost my appetite and would barely eat. All I was concerned about was my mom’s safety because she is all that I have. I am so glad she is home and recovering well, but my concerns never ended. Online school/distant learning has taken a toll on my academics. I can no longer keep up with the workload, sometimes it feels like teachers are giving too much work. For an assignment that would only take a few minutes takes me about an hour to do now. I miss going to school and having my friends around because that’s what got me through the school day. Balancing schoolwork and keeping my family safe has been the most challenging for me during this pandemic. 

To address the challenge I faced, I think it’s best if teachers would understand the students’ struggles. We had to automatically adjust to the new online school system with no transition into it, but also some students aren’t just meant for online/distance learning. Giving us massive amounts of assignments with a short due date, puts a huge toll on the students stressfully. A student’s life, during this crisis, shouldn’t revolve around keeping grades up and assignments done. We should be more focused on keeping our mental health intact and keeping our families safe.