Juliette Reyes: The Accommodation Trap
For 12 years, students are conditioned to believe that once they get their diploma, they're ready to strut off to college in a happily-ever-after sequence befitting the High School Musical finale. But life after graduation is neither so straightforward nor so glamorous, especially in the middle of a pandemic.
Since COVID-19 struck, seniors like me have struggled with managing completely virtual college decision-making, navigating online courses, and preparing for new AP exam formats, all while trying not to let the death of our senior year get to us.
My school decided that students would have 30-minute classes and meet twice a week, as well as offering office hours. Although this was meant to help kids, our educators, like many nationwide, fell into the accommodation trap.
The accommodation trap is the idea that the best way to handle a problem is to address it directly. Teachers try to address the lack of traditional school by flooding students with work or pushing students to communicate with their classmates about their struggles. The number of times my teachers inadvertently flared up my social anxiety during a group call is astronomical. When I felt pressured to discuss my internal struggles on a Zoom call, the situation didn't improve. Instead, I felt more anxious and like my boundaries weren't respected. My teacher assumed it would be a healthy bonding activity for the class, but my peers seemed hesitant to share their thoughts.
If there was one thing I could tell my school, it's this: Just because you reduce class lecture times, offer office hours, and praise yourselves for hosting "Wellness Wednesday," that doesn't necessarily mean you're helping students. Sometimes, the best course of action is to give students autonomy over their mental state by reducing classwork and providing a nurturing environment to offer emotional support when students are ready. With the mixed bag of minor supports students are currently getting, students feel pressured into staying silent, because how can you demand your school do more when teachers claim they're already doing everything they can?
The onslaught of homework, projects, and essays was overwhelming. I drowned in busy work while trying to maintain my mental health by going outside, reading books, and spending time with family. I had little time to prepare for AP tests in the learning style that was best suited for me, which put me at risk of losing valuable college credits.
Schools are aware of the effects of COVID-19, but sometimes, they lean too much on academics and not enough on other supports. My guidance counselors focused on the changing application process for rising seniors, especially requirements around standardized test scores. Although I commend them for taking action on that issue, I feel left behind. I had little to no communication with my guidance counselor when it came to registering for classes, paying deposits, comparing schools, and narrowing down my decisions. My decisions may have looked very different if my counselor and I had an active relationship during the pandemic.
I wish that my guidance counselors were more proactive in checking up with me. I found it difficult to directly approach them, especially when many of these college issues were personal. I felt like I had a certain limit of what I could ask, given the current circumstances. Despite this stress over college decisions, I'll be in the Honors College at George Mason University, double majoring in government and international politics and conflict resolution analysis, with a minor in Arabic.
Although the situation seems bleak right now, what gives me hope for the future is humanity's, especially Gen-Z's, ability to adapt and persevere. Yes, the pandemic has stripped us of our graduations and our final summers with friends and family and forced us to reconsider what we once thought was set in stone. But, despite it all, we've evolved already. Student movements like Student Voice and The New Voice Media have taken the opportunity to reach out to more people. As long as the people around me continue to foster that fighting spirit, I will have hope for a better tomorrow.
Juliette Reyes is a high school senior in Parkland, Fla., and a member of Student Voice's Press Corps.
Sadie Bograd: Openness About Uncertainty
Let's be clear: Educators are under a lot of pressure right now. At every level of the education system, teachers and administrators are confronting immense and novel workloads, suddenly faced with the challenges of reconfiguring graduation ceremonies, facilitating online learning, and simply ensuring that students' basic needs are being met.
Because there's a lot to focus on in the present, it's understandable that considerably less attention is being paid to the future. It can even feel meaningless to plan when the structure of education three months from now is so uncertain. With conflicting messages coming from local governments and medical experts, school systems are left with little idea of what's happening now, much less what's to come. This is not a satisfying situation, and it's not something my teachers or administrators can change.
But during this crisis, I appreciate openness about that uncertainty.
My teachers have been doing a great job acknowledging the difficulty of our situation and creating a sense of solidarity during these trying times. In the haphazard rush that occurred before school closed, my harried teachers took the time to tell us not only what they knew, but what they didn't. In tandem with their plans for curricula and schoolwork, they shared the gaps in their knowledge that had been worrying all of us: when or if we'd be coming back to school, what grading would look like in the interim, and whether we'd be having final exams.
These questions have since been resolved, but their answers—school canceled through May, grades only able to improve, and finals off the table—have left me with an even greater sense that we are on pause, avoiding any significant action in the present while we wait to see what the next few months will bring.
Although the world around us has changed dramatically, my teachers' candor has been a much-appreciated constant. I've begun to acclimate to the fact that on both an individual and global scale, the only thing we know for certain about the next few years is that they will be difficult, considering that we are experiencing a public health crisis without a definite ending and an economy in shambles. Being willing to acknowledge that difficulty, and the lack of surety that comes with it, is perhaps counterintuitively reassuring: After hearing so many messages of optimism and false hope, it's a relief to find acceptance of things as they are.
My expectations for college and a career look different from a few months ago, and I wouldn't be surprised if they've transformed again by August. In the midst of articles predicting everything from "hybrid online-offline degrees" to permanent school closures, my vision of a traditional four-year, in-person college education is shaky. But I'm thankful that I have teachers willing to help me through that transformation, to build a sense of community and cooperation even when we can't see each other in person. From their lighthearted attendance questions and email updates to earnest expressions of sympathy, they're providing support at a time when it's needed most.
