Finding Our Way
Finding Our Way - Glimmers of Hope, Strength and Endurance: Making Sense of Reality in the Time of COVID-19 was written by the 2019-2020 9th-12th grade students at Theodore Roosevelt High School, Boyle Heights, CA
Tangents Are Your Guide
It’s eerie to think that the final day on campus before the COVID-19 shutdown was Friday the 13th. Leading up to that day, students were getting information about this virus and showing up to class talking about the latest news with their peers. We went from shaking hands, to bumping elbows, to tapping our feet, when greeting each other. That human interaction and physical touch shifted the more we learned about it. On the last day, we dedicated class to hosting restorative justice circles for students to share their feelings. There was a mixed response and varying levels of doubt. Some students expressed, “Cool! I don’t have to be here at school anymore!”, while others shared their worries about what the impact would be on their families. Having those conversations about people’s apprehensions brought a realization that this event is greater than just not coming to school. When we got the news, no one could have predicted that we’d still be in distance learning eight months later. It’s hard to envision what we’d tell our students if we knew all that we know today, to prepare them—you can’t really prepare young people for something like this.
Students keep talking about that cycle: Wake up. You’re on the screen. Do homework. Go back to sleep. Some students are in bed all day because they don’t have a desk or proper work space. In the beginning they were okay with being at home, now they admit, “I never thought I’d say this, but I miss going to school.” They are constantly messaging their teachers about their personal and daily conflicts. A lot of young people are undergoing depression and anxiety—they’re just really struggling. The students who are normally motivated are getting frustrated and losing that motivation with getting constantly kicked out of Zoom—yet they still come back! Even when students want to turn their cameras on they can’t because their bandwidth is so low. Distance learning shows that the inequalities that have been present when on campus are now exacerbated online, and it’s burning everyone out. Teachers are fatigued and stressed out, being in their own box of a room all day. It was impossible for us to manage contacting families directly with the way our schedule was. If we wrote the book today and asked students to share what it’s like to live in a pandemic, a lot of them might not have had the energy or motivation to write about their experiences.
When classes switched to distance learning, over 95% of our students were gone and we didn’t even know where they were. It was heartbreaking to have only two or three students signing on each day. Having all those different personalities is what really made us feel connected as a class. There is now a newfound appreciation for those tangent conversations about new games, new shoes, etc. When students are interacting with each other we see that they’re actually present, so we take a step back and let it happen. What really matters is just providing a space for them to talk and share. Old policies, grades, and ways of doing things went out the window. Meditations and yoga videos from YouTube, and writing daily reflections became their assignments to help them relax and not stress too much. We’ll have ideas of what we are going to teach today, then the daily check-in ends up being the class itself. The tangents are great because students are willing to share what they’re doing and where they’re at, mentally and emotionally. It gets their mind away from everything they may be undertaking. We appreciate hearing their voices during a time when teachers were trying everything to encourage students to turn on their cameras. It’s just a highlight and joy—a positivity in our day—given everything else that’s happening in the outside world.
When reading these pieces, it is important for people to think about the lack of systemic changes that added fuel to this world fire. A lot of what young people are going through has to do with poverty and inequality. Their family members are the ones who have been working under the risks of COVID-19. They are the ones who are taking the biggest hit, emotionally and otherwise. This context is significant to acknowledge. Unless there’s a compelling systemic change, the inequities that have been amplified through this pandemic will continue to grow and fester in the most vulnerable communities, like those of our students.
This year’s cohort of published authors deserves a deeper recognition. These students wrote this, despite some of them not being in a comfortable space to work, not having WiFi, or suffering through sickness and loss. They showed their resilience through the completion of this project, while being able to express their feelings and daily confrontations in these short stories. Readers will benefit from being aware of this context when acknowledging our students: their strength, and their dedication to making this possible.
Melanie Barajas, Magdalena Ceja, Jorge Lopez, Liliana Mendoza, Jose Reinozo
U.S. History, and Ethnic Studies Teachers at Roosevelt High School