(Chrome)books out! The US back-to-school buzz arrived with fall 2020, but the slight feeling of dread that follows for students, parents, and teachers alike is magnified thanks to the 8+ months under the reign of the coronavirus pandemic. The disease’s progress from China to the world has taken a drastic toll on all populations, proven in the millions that have been infected and hundreds of thousands who have lost their lives. Since the early springtime explosion of cases that saw the shutdown of most of America’s public presence and the radical chain of events from that point onward, the nation has only continued to suffer more and more infections everyday.
As for the true audience: the millions of kids, teens, and young adults that comprise the future have been sitting in their front row seats, watching as their world leaders fumble under pressure, as neighbor communities gather to attack societal and political injustice as well as defend their traditions, all as we try to find out just when we can get back to the classroom and to our friends. Our order is all messed up; preschoolers are now a year behind and high school seniors are seeing a worrying delay in their higher education plans. Our parents are frantically switching channels everyday, looking for the announcement of the end to this nightmare. Whatever foundations we had laid in hopes of building upon this year have most likely been swept up in the 2020 landslide like everything else.
If (and when) we are to come out of this mess, will the younger generation still be intact?
To start with, we should all be thankful for the time we have to ourselves now, whether we like it or not. America can really sit down and focus on paying attention to national news because it showcases the exact efforts of the people driving our fate and the ultimate state of our country. From President Trump, Dr. Fauci, their international equivalents, and every bigwig political leadership position downwards from there in the pyramid of power, it’s all up to them to decide how we move from our position. However, our daily news having a steady stream of toxic content tells that our leaders are not handling these situations very well. Recent protests and killings along with an approaching presidential election (and that disastrous debate) have devolved the nation’s men and women into an angry opinion poll. And yet, as illegal as it may seem to say this during this time, there are more important topics than politics...
One of the biggest problems lies in the perspective of the youth of America. We are in the middle of this disarray, and many of us are about to go out there ourselves. There are fundamental issues that need solving if we are to move forward safely. Education on all levels came to a semi-halt with the disablement of in-school learning, doubling our summertime, and the traditional conditions for progress couldn’t hold up in several areas like testing and graduation. Several extracurriculars were also paused, along with the dreams of interested students. At this point, even the laziest of us would want to get back to school. Besides, we have to move on from this point in history fast to avoid the youth from picking up some of the more radical mindsets out there; should we begin to take part in the onslaught of events in such a way that Kyle Rittenhouse did at the Kenosha rally, there might not be a future for us us to move on to.
Now, with autumn and the expected reopening of schools rapidly approaching, we know better than to expect “back to normal.” We will be seeing the reintroduction of both in-person and online classes, meaning socially-distanced lunch tables and video chat classrooms. We will also inevitably see preventable contractions and unnecessary shutdowns. What we won’t be seeing, though, is a return to the format of education we’ve grown accustomed to throughout our academic journey. We could look at this as the start of a road leading to potential disaster for present and future students… or as a chance for the education system to receive a much-needed revision and for us as students to prove our dedication and pursue knowledge in other ways. With such a confusing path ahead of us, we need leaders more than ever now. We need immediate action to prevent big consequences, actions going beyond temporary measures to stall while looking for a possible solution. Whether the heroes/villains will come out of the student body, state representatives, or our very own taxpayers, let it be known that the events that take place in the academic world this season will have greater effect on the future than we could possibly imagine. No pressure.
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