The pandemic significantly influences the way education works for many countries as schools were forced to become remote or hybrid, and not every child, family, and teacher were ready for it. In The Daily’s podcast The Education Lost to The Pandemic, the host Michael Barbaro and the New York Times national education correspondent Dana Goldstein discussed that the younger children’s quality of obtaining knowledge worsened. Indeed, they identified factors that exacerbate the educative process: a child’s inability to type appropriately, read from a device, and the absence of an adult to assist them for several hours every day (Barbaro).
Furthermore, many families and schools cannot afford technical equipment and the Internet sufficient for effective studying. Goldstein also emphasized that children who experience difficulties with reading by the third grade are at the risk of falling behind all upcoming educational programs (Barbaro). The main point of the podcast is that missed learning caused by the pandemic is a significant issue that requires addressing and developing complex solutions from the government, educators, parents, and children.
The challenges are related to the families’ socio-economic status and their ability to provide all children with recourses to study. Low-income households with multiple siblings might have only one computer, yet the remote school hours are the same for every child, and they need separate devices to attend the classes. Besides, parents might not have enough time to address the need to help their kindergartners study online. One million out of fifteen million students fell behind the public schools’ program, and the educational system had never faced such disruption before so that the consequences are challenging to evaluate now (Barbaro).
Also, society is built on the notion that parents need to work and can trust the learning process to the schooling facilities, yet the pandemic made these conditions almost impossible. The inability to assist in educating the children also led to psychological issues among parents who could realize they cannot provide sufficient support.
The pandemic’s influence on how public schools work revealed the social and economic issues the nation still experiences. Indeed, the lack of essential devices for remote studying indicates that many households need more resources and support. Moreover, lockdowns showed how families depend on the social and educational systems as the children are involved in them, giving parents the time to earn a living. The pandemic disrupted schooling programs, and many students are now at risk of falling behind the baseline of education (Barbaro). Young children are significantly affected because they need to play and communicate with their classmates and teachers to obtain new skills and knowledge.
Today, most public schools are opened yet operate in the hybrid format due to the virus Delta variant spread. In the podcast, speakers mention preventative practices such as vaccination, masking policies, and prophylactic measures to decrease the risk of an outbreak (Barbaro). Quarantining that is necessary if a student or teacher were in closed and noted contact with an infected person is the strategy that works yet disrupts the educational process. Consequently, schools must integrate the best prevention and operate according to a state’s and healthcare systems’ COVID-19 addressing policies. The outcomes of these tough times would probably demand addressing studying from the regulative and family perspectives. Revising how the schooling system works from the government’s end and re-evaluating the range to which parents must be involved in educating their children would be necessary.
Work Cited
Barbaro, Michael, host. “The Education Lost to The Pandemic.” The Daily, 2021. Web.