With students having to remain home due to Covid-19, teachers have done their best to help keep kids enlightened and on track. There isn’t any denying that kids at home will get distracted with what’s happening, like a younger sibling having tech issues, their mom calling them down for breakfast, or needing to take their dog out.

Coronavirus trapped many people at home, causing many schools to shut down worldwide. Some students’ family members could’ve by chance caught Covid, taken their town’s county into the red zone, or even passed away. It accumulates to the already stressful lives of many busy children.

It’s nice to occasionally see someone’s pet walking by in the background of their zoom screen, but this can prove to be a distraction in class. Kids might start getting up to show off their pets, conversations will shift to what kind of dog breed this is, and it’s overall just an interruption to class. Keeping kids active and having fun is strongly recommended during these times, but teachers should remain diligent in keeping their students focused.

Engaging students has been a pretty prevalent issue brought up in this, but when can engaging them go too far? Most teachers are lenient enough to let students leave their cameras off, and mics muted. Some require this as a way to take attendance, or give a kid points for participation. It puts many students in an uncomfortable area, fearing judgement, looking bad, having a distracting room, etc.

Work has, so far, been extremely piling up on kids. They understand that the pandemic is forcing them to be home and stay safe, which is rough as it is. But giving these amounts of homework isn’t that appealing to them. Most schools have resulted in cramming semesters down and speeding up units, others have added more assignments and fused learning units together. Homework is set to help students practice, and master materials they need so they can pass a class, but it all just seems like compiled, spitball work now. Assigning one or two pieces of homework a day may not seem like much, but it starts to disinterest children, make them dread the class, or even the teacher. Everything seems like homework right now because everything is happening at home.

Restrictions this year didn’t allow teachers to form a closer bond with their students, which is kind of rough to feel comfortable to ask for help, as well. Kids already struggle with raising their hands to ask a question, they don’t want to embarrass themselves. They can’t build a fond trust with their teachers, just as teachers can’t see the growth and development of their students.

Kids being home doing remote learning might not be able to escape or distract themselves from a hard at-home life, either. Some students might have to remain muted because of a situation going on in their home. But they’ll be marked absent, unless they unmute and say, “here.”

Kids are tired. They don’t want to wake up at 7, skip breakfast only to see they were marked absent for their first class, and have to take notes on a frog. Teachers need to see that students are dealing with a lot more pressure now then they did before. Teachers are doing their best to keep their students safe, calm, and in check during these trying times. But they need to filter what they’re assigning, how they require students to interact, and overall just being patient with their kids. It’s a tough time for everyone, and there’s no need to make it tougher.