All highschoolers may remember that fateful day on March 13, 2020. They may remember what class they were in when lockdown was announced, how they felt, and even what clothes they were wearing. Students had to resort to online learning for the next two years. But not only did seniors miss their freshman year, they felt the lasting effects post-lockdown.
“[Learning online] was definitely very new,” said CKHS senior Mars Gartman. “Honestly, I didn’t really learn much because it was online. It just didn’t really feel like school. It felt like you listened to someone talk for a few minutes and then you went on with your day like nothing ever happened.”
Not only was online learning confusing, but many students didn’t feel like completing their work.
“I didn’t have a lot of motivation,” said CKHS senior Savannah Sinclair. “Anytime I should have done my work, it was up to me to do it. And at the same time, I wasn’t really mature. It was just kind of hard to keep that balance.”
Staying home every day for two years created an extremely isolating environment, which can be detrimental to mental health. According to the American Psychological Association, social isolation leads to self-damaging behavior such as smoking and alcohol usage. It is also twice as harmful as obesity is to physical and mental health.
“It destroyed my mental health, so I went through a really rough patch during that time, especially with one of my family members being immunocompromised,” said Gartman. “It was a whole lot of happening, and at once that kind of destroyed everything.”
According to the World Health Organization, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression went up by 25% during the COVID-19 lockdown.
“I was worried about school and not passing freshman year, and then on the other hand, I couldn’t even really get outside help even though there were people there,” said Gartman. “So many people needed help that it was almost impossible to get a medical professional to talk to.”
Freshman year is the transition between middle and high school. Some consider it to be an important year that they missed, but others don’t.
“I’m glad that it was that year, because I feel like if I had missed any other year, it would have been a lot worse for my education,” said CKHS senior Victoria Seward. “It made it feel like high school wasn’t interrupted. It would have been more frustrating if we were upperclassmen.”
Sinclair believed differently about the importance of freshman year, stating a few reasons as to why.
“It’s kind of your intro to high school,” said Sinclair. “It’s how you see how everything works and how things are run. When you miss that, it makes it hard just to continue on later years and see if you’re doing things right.”
