COVID-19 impacted an unimaginable amount of professions since 2020. This influence includes essential professions and resources such as education. The pandemic took numerous benefits from the education system, while leaving very little positive benefits behind. Not only was the profession of education affected, but the students, parents and employees were as well.
During the pandemic, classes for all ages of students around the world were suddenly transferred to virtual learning. This huge change was not planned for, thus leaving little time to prepare. Many students and parents were not fluent in e-learning websites and applications such as Zoom. Parents of younger students were expected to assist their children in logging on daily, helping with assignments, computer troubleshooting and getting their students to stay on task. Most parents were expected to conquer this task while also maintaining their full-time job, whether they were also online or out of the home. A lot of students were inexperienced at sitting in front of a computer all day and essentially learning in an entirely new style. For this reason, along with having challenging home lives, needing physical guidance and redirection, being a dual language learner, struggling with learning disabilities and many other setbacks, many children fell far behind in their studies.
When students fall behind, it does not only affect their learning but teachers as well. There are standards that are pushed on teachers to meet with their students. When a child is not meeting these standards, there are different avenues a teacher can take, such as one-on-one lessons, peer reviews and targeting learning styles. With children being out of the class, it made this much harder to accomplish with students.
Another huge transition that teachers had to take on is that children were falling behind in all other developmental categories. For example, many children were lacking social emotional development from being home and not surrounded by other students. This lack in development can cause challenging behavior, thus making the return to classrooms even more difficult. This brought on a lot of stress to many, if not all, teachers. Teachers being underpaid is not a new discovery, but in the pandemic, they were working harder and bending over backwards on a moment’s notice, making the pay feel even more unfair.
Many college students that were once seeking a career in education are changing their minds for a number of reasons. Having a lot of children coming back to school, about a year behind on curriculum and standards, and starting as a first-year teacher became an intimidating challenge. There was also a huge demand for many jobs, creating opportunities for Education majors that decided teaching during/after a pandemic was not for them.
