COVID School Learning Adaptation by Jonathan

COVID School Learning Adaptation by Jonathan - January 2022 Scholarship Essay

COVID-19 caused my school to shut down and go online. This removed the in-person contact both inside and outside of school. Some students, such as myself thrive during in-person learning where I can interact with my teachers face-to-face. Eliminating in-person contact from the learning process initially caused my grades to suffer which doesn’t accurately demonstrate my understanding of different subjects. One example of this occurred in my AP Physics class where I really struggled because the class was online. AP Physics is a very hands-on class that does a lot of experiments that help me understand the material. These experiments allow me to see the concepts the teacher is trying to teach in practice and allows me to have a better understanding of the subject matter. Being out of school during COVID replaced these labs with online simulations which did not have the same depth as in-school labs would have; not seeing these concepts in action caused my Physics grade to suffer. While COVID did cause my grades to drop by removing human interaction, it also caused me to learn how to adapt to a demanding situation. It showed I was able to adapt to a stressful situation that was changing everyday; however, that obstacle would not stand in my way of my learning and my future.
COVID-19 not only affected me, but my entire family as well. My whole family is in school as my parents are both teachers and my sister and I are high school students. COVID caused everyone in my family to be at home and participate in school online. This resulted in problems in my house because everyone was zooming at the same time. These problems included when you could eat, where you could zoom, and where I could learn without being distracted by other family members trying to do their job. This quickly created a stressful environment for everyone. These problems became something that my entire family had to work out together. This difficult situation created an opportunity to find ways to work together to solve many different problems.