Teens having hard time adjusting during era of COVID
By Harry Colbert, Jr. editor-in-chief
Twenty months.
It’s been 20 months since the then novel coronavirus, COVID-19, arrived in the United States and changed life as we know it. When we talk about 20 months, it sometimes can sound very clinical … impersonal. A lot happens in the span of 20 months.
For Asiah Bankhead 20 months means going from a middle school 8th grader to being a high school sophomore during the era of COVID. It means having spent the last of her middle school days and almost all of her freshman scholastic career attending school online via an impersonal two-dimensional computer screen … her “classmates” reduced to nondescript avatars. It means feeling uncertain about what the future holds.
“I have a fear we’ll be seniors still dealing with COVID. People are like ‘your high school experience, your high school experience.’ I’m like, ‘what experience?’ We didn’t have one,” said Bankhead, a student at North Community High School.
Ayanna Melander (left) and Asiah Bankhead, both sophomores at North Community High School, said the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their scholastic growth and mental health. Photo courtesy of North Community High School.
Javion Hill, a junior at North, likened it to going through a wormhole in time.
“It’s like just yesterday I was a freshman,” said Hill. “I feel like it was a time loop. It feels like we didn’t do anything for two years.”
Hill said at the start of the pandemic he and other students were sort of excited about the virus taking hold in the U.S. Keep in mind, this was before the millions of cases … before the deaths. He and others thought they were being held out of school as a simple precaution. Little did he know.
“At first I was excited, like we get two more weeks of spring break, but then two weeks turned into two months and now two years,” said Hill.
The weight of this “new normal” of dealing with COVID is being felt in a multitude of ways by area teens. Just the mention of COVID evokes a visually noticeable response from Patrick Henry senior Mia Campbell.
“It’s (life and being a student during COVID) is stressful,” said Campbell. “It was difficult to adjust, both at school and at home.”
Campbell said added stresses were felt last year when both she and her parents were all working from home. But returning to school came with unexpected stresses.
“We do things different now,” said the senior.
All students in Minneapolis Public Schools are required to wear masks during the day and classes are configured to accommodate for better distancing. Air purifiers hum in some of the classrooms. It is normal for students to be out due to either having or having been exposed to COVID. One of Bankhead and Hill’s teachers was out during the week of Nov. 8 – Nov. 12 due to a breakthrough case of the virus.
Several of the students at both North and Henry also expressed scholastic concerns, fearing the “lost year” has left them less prepared for college, but they take solace in knowing they are not alone.
“I kind of feel like we’re all going through this together,” said Campbell.
But the new reality is certainly taking a toll.
“I feel like this generation is going to need help dealing with the mental aspect of all of this,” said Ayanna Melander, a 10th grader at North.
Melander said last year’s scholastic experience still weighs heavily on her. She said the isolation was tough to deal with.
“It’s not healthy to be alone by yourself all day long,” said Melander. “It was so depressing.”
Though longing to be back among her classmates in an in-school setting, that too came with challenges … and fear.
“It made school awkward,” said Melander, talking about now being in close proximity to other people in an indoor setting after a year away, yet still in the midst of the pandemic. “People are trying to force normalcy, but this is not normal.”