In 2019-2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down millions of schools worldwide, including AISB. Ever since then, it has had an everlasting impact on AISB students, with behavioral issues, increasing screen time, and an overall consequence on their education. 

According to Active Minds, a study done on over 3,000 high school and college students in mid-April, 2020, 8 in 10 students struggle with focusing on schoolwork and avoiding distractions. But that was during the pandemic. What about the years considered post-pandemic?

Thus, with this article, The Bite wishes to dive deeper into how we students might be facing COVID-19’s impacts to this day, such as managing stress, being behind on some of the learning we had done during the pandemic, additional screen time, and so on.

We hope to raise awareness of these consequences and bring light to how they can improve the problems they are facing. 

The Distance Learning Years

COVID-19 pandemic started in late March 2020, quickly impacting our day-to-day lives. Millions of kids couldn’t attend school, and adults struggled with going to their workplace. Students of AISB, along with millions of other students, continued school online, called Distance Learning (DL). 

MYP/DP math teacher Christopher Moore says that during the pandemic, especially with Distance Learning, many students were left to handle their questions and problems by themselves. 

Moore adds: “​​As a result of not being able to provide direct instruction, supervision, and support in a traditional way, students were left to try and build skills and knowledge through a variety of different means.” 

There are inevitably pieces of knowledge and skills that were left undeveloped (or underdeveloped) as a result of online learning, and because of the spiral nature of education, where one each year builds off of the last, those gaps in understanding only get bigger and bigger over time unless they are actively filled.
—Christopher Moore, MYP/DP Math Teacher and Grade 10 Leader

Adding on to this idea, in a survey The Bite conducted in fall 2024, an anonymous grade 12 respondent said that during Zoom classes, they weren’t focusing in class and it was harder for them to learn; so when they came back to campus, they were missing quite a bit of the learning that had been done. 

Grade 11 student Selin O. states: “Classes definitely felt a bit heavier compared to online and it felt tiring after months of staying at home.” 

Additionally, multiple respondents also added on by saying seeing many people’s faces was extremely weird, as from that point they had only heard their voices in Zoom calls where cameras were regularly turned off. 

Unless required for the lesson, it was optional for students’ cameras to be turned on. This stemmed from the research at the time, which found that requiring students to be on camera “may not be well attuned to the reality of students learning in spaces that bring the private into a version of the public in ways that may not be healthy, sustainable or welcome”.

Returning Back to School and Feeling the Impacts  

As the pandemic wound down in 2022, schools opened up again, but there were some obvious problems in students’ education. According to a survey administered by The Bite, completed by 37 Secondary students, 48.6% of respondents believe that online learning had some impact on their education, while 24.3% of students said that online learning had a major impact. 

Additionally, 43.2% of students in the same survey said that their learning was significantly impacted, and only learned a few things. 

This survey data points to some major impacts on learning due to the pandemic and the huge increase in screen time. Once students returned to campus full-time in 2021-22, there were relatively few actions taken to address this additional screen time up until the current school year’s strict phone and laptop restrictions.

Will to Work: The Motivation that Was Lost Along the Way

Due to the overexposure of screens and devices, the majority of respondents also stated that their screen time has increased way too much since the pandemic. 

Online learning gave too much freedom to students, to the point where they didn’t have the desire to work anymore, which led to their concentration and discipline decreasing. However, since they were so used to the extra freedom during online school, it led to troubles in their concentration and focus when they returned to campus.

I stopped focusing that much [during distance learning] and it was harder [when we returned to campus] because now the teachers were looking at us at all times. It was harder to pay attention because at home I could do whatever I wanted if I had my camera off. I was so used to being with my siblings and us not doing anything during online classes because the teacher wouldn’t know if we did not do anything.
—Grade 7 anonymous student survey respondent

Social Impact of Online Learning 

While some returned back to school and were able to continue their social lives without any challenge, most people struggled to make friends again. 

“The other issue that was seen,” says Christopher Moore, about the impact of Distance Learning, “was in terms of the development of social skills and interactions.”

“For some students who were in online learning during the most important formative years of their lives, they never got the chance to interact with others in person, and therefore never got the opportunity to properly develop the social skills that should have been learned at that stage of their life.” 

Grade 6 student Louise L. reports that the biggest challenge throughout the pandemic was “making friends” because they had to move to three different countries and schools in the span of three years. 

Many other respondents reconfirmed the same challenge as Louise, stating that making friends and socializing again was too hard after returning to campus.

School had been going on and off for quite a few years and it was different because I couldn’t make friends as I used to be able to, and I was shy to talk to people in real life.
—Grade 7 anonymous student survey respondent

How Can We Rebuild? 

From our personalities to our education, COVID-19 impacted multiple parts of our lives. 

Screen time has played a big role in this. AISB’s Secondary has taken a major step toward this problem with their new phone policy, to help students grow independence from their screens during school hours. While the majority of the students may not agree with the policy, at least initially, AISB’s goal is to slowly show students how they don’t need to depend on their phones and can continue their lives without it, even if that means locking it away in lockers. 

While AISB has taken a major step, teachers must also understand each student has their own way of learning, so while one doesn’t seem to have any challenges from Distance Learning, another student may be struggling to keep up, even after all of these years. This can mean possibly changing their teaching method to adjust to their student and/or the class, or being more open to hearing about the possible struggles students may be facing. 

According to studies mentioned in The Lancet, a good portion of students had forgotten how to study during Distance Learning, and even had a higher rate of burnout and stress, with many reporting their stress levels being 10 out of 10. Teachers must encourage students to improve their approaches to learning (ATLs) in addition to the content and skills. 

Additionally, students can also try to make personal improvement by themselves, such as trying to reduce screen time, spending their free time with family and friends instead of looking at their phones, or even reading a book to help reduce their screen time. 

Therefore, students can improve their unhealthy habits leftover from the COVID-19 pandemic to also improve their mental and academic struggles.