Sense of Loss
In describing their return to high school in fall 2021, many students expressed a sense of loss and of being lost. Students described losing time, community, motivation, academic skills, and interest in school. Some explained that they felt unmoored to their new grade-level after experiencing a lost school year. Students described a formidable ongoing process of recovering their social and academic skills, and they asked their schools for time and patience as they readjust to school.
What 20 Students Had to Say About Sense of Loss
“I feel like we have lost touch with each other …. I feel like since we have lost touch and connection that people just assume that we know what we’re doing. The truth is that we need a lot of support, because let’s face it we’re still clueless and young. We still need support, and I feel like there is a lack of communication and understanding which makes a lot of youth and teens feel alone and stressed.”
10th grade, girl/woman, Asian
“Because the COVID pandemic hit, I felt like I was unprepared for applying to colleges. Since it was my junior year, I felt as though there had been lost opportunities to make my college applications stronger.”
12th grade, girl/woman, Asian
“We are going to be late for class! And there is inevitably going to be disconnect between teachers and students because zoom made things so uncomfortable. People lost their academic values, and (we) are going to need time to recover.”
12th grade, girl/woman, white
“Lots of us feel lost in life now, scared, don’t know where to start.”
12th grade, prefer not to say, prefer not to say
“During last year, my mental health had seriously deteriorated because of online learning and because of that, my grades had worsened. Because of all that, I had lost my self-esteem and my sense of self and I’m still recovering from that.”
11th grade, girl/woman, African American
“A lot of us have also lost our social and communication skills. Learning online everything would be virtual we would have no human interaction which led us to become shy and scared to ask questions.”
11th grade, girl/woman, LatinX
“I feel that I have lost not only the determination I once had, but I have never felt so alone in my life as I have been the past almost three years.”
11th grade, boy/man, white
“I lost an entire year of my life and am still expected to act like everything is normal. There is imense pressure placed on the students, pressure that might be normal for juniors and seniors, but not right for people who still feel like freshman and sophomores.”
11th grade, prefer not to say, white
“Over Covid-19 me and my family lost everything, our home, and our source of income causing us to make a final decision to live in an RV.”
11th grade, prefer not to say, LatinX
“Coming from middle school to high school … Many teachers say it’s been a rough past year and still, it feels like I know nothing. I feel lost as to what is happening, the school environment is different from what it was before the pandemic.”
10th grade, girl/woman, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
“We have lost work ethic. It is so hard to get back into the routine of regular school and schoolwork. We have Zero motivation.”
12th grade, girl/woman, Middle Eastern/North African
“A lot of Seniors like me don’t feel motivated to finish school successfully due to the fact that we lost a whole year in Junior year. So it feels like we’re still Juniors rather than Seniors, we feel unmotivated.”
12th grade, girl/woman, Asian
“Teachers should be more forgiving about us students understanding the materials and compensate for the last year and a half of learning lost. I’ve seen so many people struggling to adjust back to normal school life, and hammering students that ‘this should be right where you left off’ and ‘this is how it is, get used to it’, this is not how it works, or how it should. Teachers need to slow down.”
12th grade, girl/woman, white
“The change has been extremely demotivating. Many of us feel that we’ve lost control of our lives completely, and we’re spiraling into depression and failure.”
12th grade, prefer not to say, prefer not to say
“I’m just trying to get back to being on top of things, caring, and being overall happy. I lost my direction when the pandemic happened and overall need help in trying to find my way through high school and getting to college.”
11th grade, girl/woman, Asian
“Most teachers do not understand that students are not trying because they don’t want to, they are not trying because they have lost hope and motivation.”
11th grade, girl/woman, white
“I lost interests in the things I use to love and felt alone, and by the second semester of my sophomore year I had completely given up and didn’t believe I would be able to keep going. Being at (my school) has made me realize that I can still put in the efforts to have a future and get back on track to graduate. With all the presentations about continuing onto a higher education and all the different career options, I no longer feel so behind.”
11th grade, boy/man, white
“It’s really difficult to regrow the working/studying muscles I lost during the pandemic. It’s taking longer than usual to really get back into the swing of things.”
11th grade, prefer not to say, LatinX
“I kinda feel like the students here are a lost cause and there’s no saving them from what they are doing now.”
10th grade, boy/man, African American
“In this change, kids, adults, people had lost contact with each other and forgot how to communicate to one another. This goes along with the need of respect in schools, and teachers learning that we as the kids in the school aren’t comfortable enough to always raise our hands in class or speak out. We have lost our touch.”
10th grade, girl/woman, white
Explore the full Students Weigh In series
Education in the United States, as across the globe, changed dramatically when the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools across the country to close in spring 2020 and over 50 million students were asked to learn remotely.
In response to a stark lack of firsthand data about how the pandemic and school closures were affecting students’ lived experiences YouthTruth explores what students have to say about learning and well-being during COVID-19 in our series.
