This is three minutes of a Google Meet recorded on December 22, 2020. This particular student was a senior. Their last day in our school building was March 13, 2020. Most of our students did not return to the building until August of 2021. This student, along with all but a dozen from the class of 2021, never returned.
At one point after we returned from almost a year and a half of virtual school, I made the case that these kids need help; we can’t pretend virtual school didn’t harm them and continue on as if that year and a half didn’t happen. My assistant principal answered that we need to move on; yes, these particular kids may not be okay. But the next batch will be fine. These current 18-23-year-olds would be another “lost generation,” and I needed to shift my focus to the kids coming up from middle school.
I had to look up “lost generation”; they were the generation that lost so many men in WWI. But our ‘lost’ kids weren’t killed in a war. These kids are still alive. They are lost, though. How could they not be? We took away their sense of belonging. We took away their meaning. We took away their education. And their connection. We took away everything a human needs to thrive. And then we decided to write them off while they were still sitting in our classrooms.
Here’s a snippet from the recording:
“There's nothing that captivates my mind. There's no intellectual conversations. There's no new experiences. There's nothing. You’re trapped in your own mind constantly. My sister is here and my mother’s here. I'm technically not alone, but the feeling of loneliness is still so much stronger than it's ever been.
It's less about will the virus kill me. It's will my own mind be my destruction at this point.
I walk into my kitchen, I eat food. I walk back to my room. I sit back down. I watch TV. I play on my phone. I maybe read a book. I play on my computer. I try to attempt homework. It doesn't work. I take a nap. I take another nap. I eat again. I drink some water. That's my day, every day.
What's the point at this point?
We've lost our motivation. Even my really smart friends, they're struggling and I thought they were going to be perfectly fine. But in reality, we're all struggling. So now I know it's not just me. I know it's not just my mentally ill friends. I know it's literally everyone.”
What we did to these kids was not okay. It’s crucial we acknowledge the extent of the damage and work toward rebuilding not just their education but their sense of connection and purpose.
Ignoring the past won’t make it disappear. It’s time to face it, learn from it, and make sure that we don’t repeat the same mistakes. Moving forward, how do we ensure this generation doesn't stay lost?
Generation Lost?