The Effects COVID-19 had on US Educators
By: Katherine Senseman
The teaching world was forever changed two years ago when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across the United States. For two years, staff and students were limited to communications through screens and masks. In 2022 schools returned to relative capacity and educators were blindsided by the change in the students’ behavior and social skills. COVID-19 changed the way educators taught and the way students treated each other and their educators.
When the pandemic was declared schools shut down immediately and made the decision to go virtual they left educators totally unprepared to teach in an asynchronous environment and without the training to support them. Educators were forced to teach over online communication apps like Zoom and Google classroom. They had to attempt to engage with students they couldn’t see and had no control over the student’s learning environment.
Above! Three educators strike during a Red for Ed protest to protect the school systems. Caption by Katherine Senseman.
A study conducted by Education Week found that 60 percent of educators report that they are burnt out, while 18 percent developed high levels of anxiety disorders and symptoms during the pandemic.
The relationship between educators and students is important because it paves the way for a successful year, even with the unfortunate circumstances the pandemic caused the education system to face. It caused teachers to be under staffed, underpaid and underappreciated according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
In the 2021-2022 school year 81 percent of educators admitted that the overall workload increased after returning to school during the soft reopen. The soft reopening being half of the student body going some days and the other half on the other days. After returning to school even if it was part time the educators still had to make up for learning loss that was caused by COVID-19 including low test scores, grades and motivation was at an all-time low. It came to the point where students were estimated to be five months behind in mathematics and four months behind in reading according to Mckinsey and Company.
A lot of people believe that COVID-19 isn’t truly the reason for the rise in levels of teacher burnout and anxiety. They argue that it’s actually the parents and students causing the educators to be burnt out and understaffed. I do believe that they play into each other but in the end COVID-19 was the main cause for all the negativeeffects the educational system faced in the years after the pandemic.