Items

• 2020-03-12

  Young Mom during Covid-19

  I had a birthday weekend trip planned to GA in March 2020. My baby and I flew down a few days after the initial outbreak and warnings began. I remember wondering if it would add an extra week or two to the trip, with delays and precautions, but would've never guessed months would pass! We stayed in GA for 3 months, grateful to be out of a big city and to have my parent's large home and yard, sidewalks to walk but really hard being away from my husband and baby from their father. I was grateful to be surrounded by extended family but it was sad not spending time with my partner and for him being isolated. He didn't interact with anyone while he stayed in our home and worked remotely, it was lonely and hard. When we decided enough protocol was in place we could try our best to safely return home we were anxious in the airport but thankfully did not get sick. The masking protocol didn't feel burdensome or silly to me, it was a challenge for my child, though they did wear it as needed for small amounts of time. My child's 'toddler' years were not spent interacting with many children their age, or with any adults other than family. It was interesting to see how they developed after the pandemic and was able to become more social in time and with more opportunities.
• 
  0022-08-18

  Hearing Aids

  In the audio-file I tried to manipulate the sounds to reflect some of the ways I interpret the world as a Hard of Hearing woman during the Covid-19 pandemic. I want the listener to be able to feel the frustration as they listen and try to understand the story. The pandemic has forced many of us to adapt. This is my story.
• 
  2020-04-25

  Cannot Hear You Anymore

  The ability to hear, the ability to speak, the ability to process what has been said and respond. All of these changed for me in my classroom because of COVID. First the students went totally away, silence, and not the comforting restorative kind, but the absence of those that have become part of me. Suddenly gone silent. After some time they return but not near enough. Talking and hearing through masks obscures and diffuses the words. Can you please repeat that, repeated over and over again. Words cannot get through the first time. Or the second. Frustration sets in and lingers even now. Lack of hearing becomes a lack of understanding and lack of empathy. Habits of caring and concern atrophy. I have endless patience with my students, less so for the rest of my fellow man. The man that refuses to wear a mask across the aisle on a flight home, telling me to shut up when I request that he cover his face. Maybe he can hear, but just refuses to. The relative that isn't vaccinated but still wants to come to the funeral and risk others. They cannot hear my wisdom, though they might tell you that I cannot hear theirs. The masks come off but still the hearing does not return. The classroom starts to normalize, but the rest of the world does not.
• 
  2021-10-13

  Zoom University

  While my life has changed significantly due to the covid-19 pandemic, I would say that the biggest adjustment for me was adapting to the different methods of instruction at my university. As a college student, I was used to and grew comfortable with in person instruction. This was the method of learning that I partook my entire life; the sudden change to strictly online had significant effects on my academic performance and overall retention of material. For me, it was remarkedly more difficult to grasp concepts that I would have comprehended under normal study conditions. Taking science heavy courses such as organic chemistry, instrumental analysis, physics, and molecular biology were all much more difficult than they would have been normally. It is also prudent to note the inconsistencies of professors during this time period, as they had to adjust just as much (or even more) than students. Old-school professors that did not have experience with the newest technology were forced to orient their lecture material in a format completely foreign. Needless to say, professors who were very effective instructors in person often struggled in the zoom format. Specifically, issues related to zoom that affected the quality of teaching included connection issues and students having incentives to not pay attention. For example, I took biostatistics 1 completely online, where the professor was older and not technologically adept. Every class the professor would write notes on a paper and and show it to the class. This strategy for teaching proved to be ineffective because the quality of video was not definitive, the lighting was poor, and the handwriting was small. All of these combined factors led to an entire class who had no idea what was being taught to them. While this is unfortunate, I adapted by reading more of the textbook than I would under normal circumstances, and met with the professor during office hours to work out material that I did not understand.
• 
  2021-09-09

  Looking Back to Look Forward and Adapting to Overcome

  These text stories are from St. Mary University's Rattler Newspaper. These articles relate to the pandemic and my theme because they are discussing how students are adapting from the previous year(s), whether it be dealing with changes to online vs. in-person lectures, new policies to promote safety, or anything else. This theme is important to me because I was still in high school during the start of the pandemic, so I had to go through lots of adaptations, not only because of my transition into college but also because of the ongoing pandemic. When I decided to attend St. Mary's, lots of things were still uncertain, for example, whether or not class will be held in person or virtually, mask and vaccination mandates, etc. Chloe Presley is the contributing writer, and Adrianna Mirabal is responsible for the graphics.
• 2020-04-01

  COVID-19 Through My Eyes

  The item that I am submitting is the story of my experience of Covid-19, what my family and I went through and how we have pushed forward and persevered despite the many difficult challenges we faced the past year. This is important to me as it tells my story through my point of view, my journey through what I consider to be the hardest moments of my life.
• 
  2021-05-27

  Teachers Rock

  Right before COVID-19 hit my husband made the transition from active duty military to reservist. After eight years we were finally given the gift to settle down and live a "normal" life. January of 202 we moved into our home and three months later we were facing a quarantine. That same in the midst of that my daughter started kindergarten. It was a moment I had thought of for quite some time. In my mind, I would take lots of pictures, walk her to her class and tearfully walk back to my car and having a pity party about my growing girl. Instead, my daughter spent her first day at home in front of a computer while I fought to get into her virtual classroom. For months we dealt with virtual than in class then back to virtual learning as COVID cases peaked. My daughters Kindergarten teacher was the only constant bright light throughout the school year. Through it all she worked tirelessly to make sure the kids had a positive school experience. She went out of her way to make sure the school brought them joy in the midst of the chaotic year, having her in my daughter's life became personal to my family. At the end of the school year she sent out her last newsletter thanking parents but the reality of it is- she was a complete rockstar and we will forever be grateful. I wanted to share her last newsletter in hopes that it reflects an ounce of how difficult this school year was for teachers and how resilient children were.
• 2021-01-14

  Virtual learning

  During the crazy year of 2020, we weren't allowed to have school in person. Instead, we had to learn remotely. There was both benifits and obstacles in this time. Some of the benifits were that we didn't have to wake up early, or go to different periods, because everything was one click away. Although there were some benifits, there were also difficulties. Some of them included no socializing, technology could sometimes fail, and we didn't have the same tools that we had in the classroom. Overall, this year has been a great change, and I think that we haver to start getting used to a different life.
• 2020-09-14

  Virtual School During COVID

  This journal entry was written as a part of the American Studies class at California High School in San Ramon, California. I think virtual school has some pros and cons. I definitely prefer it over in-class learning right now just because I still don’t think we are where we want to be in terms of the number of coronavirus cases. I definitely think that learning online is a lot harder. I like the “atmosphere” better because I’m more comfortable learning in my own house. But it’s hard to remember things that I’ve learned through a screen. Some of my teachers act like we should know everything like we are still in school. I appreciate them wanting to treat it as much like a classroom as possible, but it’s honestly hard to learn normally through a screen. It’s also harder to ask questions when the whole class is watching you. I don’t think that teachers should put a lot of pressure on us to know as much as we should as if we were in school. It’s pretty stressful. Also, all of our homework is on the computer and I don’t know about anyone else but doing homework online takes forever. I basically only do homework when I’m not in class; before school, afters school, I’m always doing homework. I don’t really have time to do anything else. I wish the teachers would give a little less homework because it just takes so long to upload everything and input answers from my papers. I get about 4-5 or even 6 hours of homework every night which is kind of overwhelming. Even though I know junior year is supposed to be hard, I didn’t think that it would mean more hours of me doing homework than me sleeping. I think the online aspect of it makes it take longer, and I’d really like for teachers to maybe loosen up on the homework load.
• 
  2020-07-29

  Australian Health Worker quote on patients

  They have no one else with them. They're scared, they're frightened and it's very difficult. Quote from Female aged 52, Specialist Care Doctor. Image created by the Health Worker Voices project: https://mspgh.unimelb.edu.au/healthworkervoices
• 
  2020-11-06

  College VS. Pandemic

  Being a college students is seemingly easy and hard enough at the same time. We go to class we start taking notes and we transition those notes into a study sheet or even into a paper. The important part of that is the going to class part. One thing that I have personally learned is that it was not easy to transition to online classes. I am a visual learner and it is a lot easier to ask questions on something you did not understand. The transition to emailing and hoping you get a response buy the time the assignment is due is something new to a lot of people. and this is not just for the schooling side of the pandemic this is also for the culture of a college campus. There is jsut something about being on a campus and knowing that every other person that you are seeing is going through the exact same thing as you are and you are in this fight together. Also, you create friendships in these environments that could ultimately help you with an assignment. It is hard to transition to being alone and trying to do these things by yourself.
• 
  2020-05-08

  A Student’s Daily Life During a Pandemic

  This is a post to Instagram of a story The Rattler’s lifestyle section did covering student life during the pandemic. The images highlight the story and are a scan of the physical paper. This story was published towards the beginning of the pandemic in May 2020, just as classes were moving online and student life became unrecognizable. In the story Angel Valarde, senior psychology and Spanish major; Joel Reyna, freshman psychology major; and Scott Short, senior finance major all detail their daily lives after they are no long able to go to classes. This showcases how different students lives became, and although they were less busy with running to classes it didn’t make their lives any easier.
• 
  2020-06-19

  The COVID-19 Experience of a High School Student

  I chose an image of a clock and of a student working. If there is one thing I have learned during this pandemic, it is that I have a lot of time. I have been utilizing this time to exercise more, study for longer periods of time and also just to enjoy myself. The image of the student represents the amount of work that I have had to do online. School has been completely different with the online work rather than going to school five days a week in real life. These two items represent two of the most important factors of my pandemic experience.
• 
  05/06/2020

  Circling

  The students are 6th graders at Colorado Academy, a PreK - 12 independent day school in Denver, Colorado. After departing for Spring Break, and not returning to physical school, the students began Learning From Home and taking classes via Zoom. After 8 days in this “new school” the students wrote reflections on their “new reality." They were given complete freedom to craft any type of statement that tapped into their emotions about the change forced upon them by the Coronavirus pandemic. Please note that neither of these pieces was edited by me or by their parents (they actually had not see them until I asked for permission, and I did not read them until they were turned in to be graded).
• 
  2020-05-08

  Social Distancing Date

  Social distancing date during Covid-19
• 
  2020-04-27

  The affects of Covid-19 on children: Homeschooling and special needs services

  A young boy works on a speech therapy assignment from home. Families are struggling to navigate how to continue their children’s special needs services in a time when social distancing is mandatory and all non essential services are closed down. #REL101
• 
  2020-04-29

  One College Student's Experience During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  As I imagine it is for many other people in the United States, particularly in the northeast, the emergence of the Coronavirus, and the subsequent panic and declaration of a global pandemic, was surprisingly quick. The first that I heard about the virus was from a news article during Holiday Break. At this point, my thinking was that because it is in China, it was not that big of a deal. However, the picture of doctors in full protection gear carrying a body bag was disturbing. Being a person with contamination fears that accompany my obsessive-compulsive disorder, I immediately Googled the symptoms of the disease. I was slightly comforted that one of the symptoms was not nausea and vomiting because my main phobia is vomit. A few weeks after this initial introduction, I was back at Bates College for my Winter Term. Coincidently, I was enrolled in a course called “China in the World.” Part of this course was to analyze media relating to China and connecting it to our core concepts. The first week that we got into small groups to share our individual pieces of media that we chose, most of my classmates choose news articles about the novel Coronavirus. In the weeks following our initial discussion about COVID-19, the virus was present on everyone’s mind, but it did not seem as an eminent threat. People would bring it up in conversation, but we were told not to worry. We had our winter break during the week of February 16th, and many people traveled with friends or went home. I went back to my home in Connecticut. Being that we live an hour away from New York City, my dad commutes into the city every day, and we visit the city often. My mom planned for us to go into the city and watch the Broadway show, Hadestown, before I left to go back to school. At this point, I saw some people taking precautionary measures, but the majority of people did not seem to be worried. My sister brought hand sanitizer, and we all used it before eating and after touching handles or anything else. After break, I headed back to school. During the next two to three weeks, the nation saw the confirmed cases of the virus rapidly increase. Once it became prevalent in the Boston area and colleges started to shut down, it was only a matter of time before Bates closed. The last week before we were sent home—the week of March 8—things started to change each day. Each day brought cancelations, new dining protocols, and a lot of uncertainty for both students and professors. I found it hard to concentrate on getting the work I needed to accomplish completed. By the time it got to Thursday, the high school in my town—where my sister is a senior—had moved to remote learning, the preschool that my mom works at had closed down, and many other colleges and universities have sent their students home or asked that they stay home after spring break. Thursday, I tried to spend a good amount of time with my friends, assuming that we were going to be sent home and not going to be able to see each other for an unknown period of time. Friday morning, around 10am, Bates College President Clayton Spencer announced that we would need to pack up all of our belongings and leave school by the following Tuesday. Subsequently, we would begin remote learning. My 11am class was canceled and very few people showed up to our last in-person China in the World class. During this time, our professor put up the live stream of President Trump’s address to the American public declaring a national emergency. We all sat there pretty quietly. The whole situation still felt so surreal. One invisible entity was causing mass destruction around the globe. My sister and my dad drove up to Maine and picked me up Saturday the 14th of March. It was quite difficult to say goodbye to all of my friends, especially since I wanted to give them all hugs. I said goodbye to the vast majority of people I wanted to see and we headed to Portland for the night. It occurred to me as we were driving by the historic quad a Bates that this would be the last time I would be there for a while; I was planning on going abroad in the fall before the chaos of the virus. Arriving at the hotel, I was feeling pretty down. I am such a homebody, so I never thought that leaving school and spending the rest of the semester at home would be upsetting. It truly was. The week after being sent home, I got an email saying that I was exposed to the one individual who had a confirmed case of the disease on Bates campus. It was a little alarming feeling like I might have exposed my family to the virus. However, my sister happened to be talking to her best friend that night and her friend confessed that her whole family had the virus. Therefore, we had been exposed to the disease twice. We all quarantined for fourteen days, and luckily no one developed symptoms. Over the last month, I have been trying to stay busy and focus on my schoolwork. As more and more people perish from disease, it has been difficult to get up each day not dreading the worst. I have tried to limit the amount of news that I have watched in order to decrease my anxiety. I have tried to ignore some of the “news” presented on social media sites that provide misinformation about the disease. I wish I could help with the crisis more than I have already because, honestly, it feels like staying home is not enough. It has helped to talk to my friends and family over Skype, Zoom, or FaceTime. Now that school is over, I am going to focus on doing things for my mental and physical health. As I mentioned before, having contamination fears during this pandemic has been challenging. Through therapy, I have been taught to limit my hand washing and other compulsions having to do with my phobias. During the pandemic, though, it is necessary for everyone to be extremely cautious and wash their hands pretty constantly. All of the precautionary measures have been triggering, but I am proud to say that I am handling the pandemic a lot better than I would have imagined I would have a few years ago. I am extremely grateful to be able to be living at my family home safely, and having access to food and other resources. I feel extremely privileged being in the situation I am in, and sincerely feel for others who may not find themselves in a similar circumstance.
• 
  2020-04-28

  Notes during Class 1

  This image is apart of a series of screenshots taken during lessons via Microsoft Teams.Teaching my third graders from afar has become a challenge and a blessing at the same time. None of us knew of Mr. Microsoft Teams until we were forced to meet him. The way he impacts our lives is sometimes frustrating and other times satisfying. Unlike classroom noise, the chat that goes on during lessons are now mixed in with the lesson and available for all to participate- including the teacher! It's silent and said with caution and other times daring. (I've blurred the faces and redacted the names to protect the students' privacy.)
• 
  2020-04-07

  2020 Melbourne International Film Festival Cancelled

  Announcement of cancellation of the 2020 Melbourne International Film Festival due to the pandemic