In early 2020 Covid-19 hit the USA, sending us into lockdown. During this time, all education was moved online so we could continue schooling despite the challenges. Now that we are in 2026, how has education changed from the way it was in 2020? In this article, we’ll have interviews with Mrs. Matthews and Mr. Fisher Rodriguez, teachers here at BHS. 

During my interview with Mrs. Matthews, we discussed three different sections of education that could have been affected by COVID: Behavior, Technology, and Environment. When discussing the effect on behavior, we focused on academic behaviors, as not much social behavior seemed to change within classrooms. Mrs. Matthews noted that she’d witnessed a lag in academics since COVID hit. This is in part due to students, such as the class of 2027, who were transitioning to middle school during lockdown, and the fact that, according to Matthews, assignments were dumbed down to be more accessible during COVID. This leaves a lasting impact of the rigor and motivation in academics to this day. Regarding technology in classrooms, Mrs. Matthews noted, “From a teacher standpoint, we had to learn technology so fast. Instructional technology has teachers learning on the fly.” This shows that technology was essentially dropped in the laps of teachers, some without much prior knowledge of the subject. This remained true for students as well, as Zoom was a learning curve for many, as well as online assignment applications. Those programs are still in effect to this day, even if they were not as needed before COVID, as many classes were still analog at that time. Throughout the three sections, we discussed that it seemed that school environments from a teacher lens remained the same, and are getting back to the norm quickly. Through my interviews with Mr/Herr. Fisher Rodriguez I managed to get an interesting take on the social impacts of COVID within classrooms. Since COVID he has observed a lack of responsiveness when it comes to kids working in groups or pairs of unknown people, which has a large impact, as that is much of the German program. Quoted from Herr Fisher Rodriguez, “Life is a group project.” He said this in regard to the importance of students being able to socialize with one another.

COVID has had a lasting impact on not only our society as a whole, but also smaller facets such as education. Through the eyes of the teachers mentioned within this article, we can see the large gaps COVID has created within the educational space, but also the places that COVID was unable to reach.