How COVID-19 impacts our generations

With students having begun online learning on Aug. 13 due to COVID-19, people are already asking “what will happen next?”. Confirmed cases are going down in Texas, but they’re at a halt. At the start of the pandemic, it was widely thought that by now everything would be back to normal. However, it’s possible that it won’t be “normal” for a while, and maybe that’s a good thing.

Face to face learning is starting Sept. 3rd for those who selected it, creating an illusion of normality. “Normal” is something that we have all longed for since the first couple of months of quarantine. It was fun at first; when spring break was extended a week or two, or when we started online school and things were easy. Then another two weeks got canceled, and another two weeks, and so on until the whole rest of the 2019-2020 school year was gone. We were thrown out of our comfort zones into a way of learning, and living, that we were not used to.

Staying at home this much has helped lead this generation to learn more about ourselves, and our society as a whole. We were able to take this time and realize that what’s “normal” shouldn’t be normal. Going back to face to face learning so soon contributes to an old definition of normal that we shouldn’t abide by. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic, thousands upon thousands of people have died, and then there are still many social issues that need to be addressed.

This time spent social distancing has made me realize that there needs to be change; change in the way we live, change in the way we treat others, and change in our society. Many teenagers have realized the difference that needs to be made, and some of us may grow up advocating for that difference. “normal” after COVID-19 is over as it’s causing us to change our definition of normal in our daily lives. It impacted the way many of us view the world, and ourselves.