‘Your gonna miss me when I’m gone.’ So clique and so accurate. If someone were to describe this painful new reality six months ago, no one would believe them. I believe life is going to be much different, and much nostalgia will exist for the pre-COVID-19 world if it does not already. In the drag of modern life, a change that is not required does not happen. However, change happens when there is no other option than, to change. We are in much need of it, and I sure hope it comes. There’s a more significant incentive to reform the American Healthcare system, to protect our environment, not to spend 600 billion dollars on the military every year. For this essay, I will analyze the effects on American schools and revelations this virus brings on our unequal educational system.
Kids are no longer in school and are forced to study from home. Teachers are going to be forced to change their methods of instruction, something that has never seemed to happen. If we look at innovation throughout the last two hundred years, nearly all aspects of life have radically changed, but the American education system remains untouched. I believe it is positive that teachers will have to trial education that is considered remote learning. A powerful tool is Khan Academy, which its founder has described as a practical approach in parallel to current in-person education. Students learn the material online from home and then come into school to get a better understanding and fill the gaps of what they do not entirely understand. Children get to work at their own pace and teachers are used to help students with what they individually need. I feel this could be used in this epidemic where students only come to school in small groups once a week to improve their abilities with individual support. This will allow for proper social distancing, and maybe they will find this to be a more effective approach than the education pre-COVID-19 era.
Nevertheless, this solution is not a reality for many families. Not everyone can have a stable and consistent connection to the internet. The Department of Commerce publishes annual statistics on the number of school-age children that do not have an internet connection. As of 2017, 14% of school-aged children did not have a home internet connection (Welle 2020). The less quantitative but equally important reality is that some homes don’t have computers for each child. The government is taking strong initiatives to get computers to disadvantaged children. Katrina McCombs, superintendent of Camden City School District, stated that “This COVID-19 crisis has accelerated our ability to be able to get Chromebooks and internet access into the hands of some of the most vulnerable children in the United States. That should have already been the case, but it was not. (Maxouris & Yu 2020)”
Another issue of the current predicament stems from the fact that millions of children rely on meals served at school. The Department of Agriculture published statistics stating that 20 million children rely on school meals daily (“Child Nutrition Tables”).
David Scal, a high school teacher from New Jersey, stated that “However this plays out in the sort of immediate effects to people, really all it does is demonstrate the profound inequality that already exists in this society. (Maxouris & Yu 2020)” This pandemic sheds light on a few of the many inequalities in America, and I believe that COVID-19 will force the government to assist and support low-income communities. Doing cost-benefit analysis for such a situation where lives are being lost and ruined is wrong, but it is a reality for a country that does not change when society is stable. Change is being forced to happen now, and I hope that it continues to happen in an ethical way once the pandemic ends.
Works Cited
“Child Nutrition Tables.” USDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture , http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/child-nutrition-tables.
Goldberg, Rai. “Digital Divide Among School-Age Children Narrows, but Millions Still Lack Internet Connections.” Digital Divide Among School-Age Children Narrows, but Millions Still Lack Internet Connections | National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 11 Dec. 2018, http://www.ntia.doc.gov/blog/2018/digital-divide-among-school-age-children-narrows-millions-still-lack-internet-connections.
Maxouris, Christina, and Alice Yu. “The Coronavirus Crisis Spotlights the Inequalities in American Education.” CNN, Cable News Network, 17 Apr. 2020, http://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/us/coronavirus-education-distance-learning-challenges/index.html.
English 802 Spring 2020 
Reading this opinion was interesting and enjoyable. You mentioned small individual groups coming in to school once or twice a week to re-enforce information they learned remotely. I think this is a great short term solution to school closures. You outlined the amount of underprivileged children that are simply unable to learn remotely at this time. This is I think one of two massive issues with remote learning. The other being, that our schools are not just about providing pure informational education to children, they are more about teaching them how to interact with adults, and how to socialize and interact with each other. None of us need a scientific study to show that online socializing is just not the same, and will not cut it with children, especially at an middle, elementary and early childhood level where practicing in person interaction is paramount to their development.
I think though learning through the internet is a great thing now, it is of the utmost importance that come September, our children are back in classrooms where they belong.
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“In the drag of modern life, a change that is not required does not happen. However, change happens when there is no other option than, to change.” Right away, this was a super powerful statement! I agree totally when you’re saying that remote teaching is a great tool for educators to have under their belts. As an education major myself, all of my professors mention at LEAST once a class period how this is a wonderful learning experience and how “lucky” we are to have it. Of course the term lucky is used very loosely. I like how you introduced the topic of meal dependency with a statistic. Personally I use that approach a lot and find it to be fairly successful. Your conclusion was short, but it proved to be affective as it circled back to the main idea of your initial paragraph. I enjoyed reading your piece!
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This was a very interesting read and all of us can relate because we are going through it now. I agree it is sad we had to leave our school environment to substitute it with a computer screen. We don’t realize how good something is until it is taken away from us. I also agree there are many factors and flaws in forced online teaching for both students and teachers. A great internet connection is almost mandatory when taking tests or quizzes and some teachers who have never taught online now had to adjust. You made great points and brought up great sources.
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