The biggest differences I noticed from pre-COVID to post-COVID students

I student taught during the 2019-2020 school year and watched everything go to hell during the last half of the spring semester. Then I got my first classroom during 2020-2021 and it was mainly independent learning, so the only kids I saw were my 8th graders. <br>2021-2022 was full contact in on grade levels of 7th and 8th but still the kids were pretty much on track mentally. They were very nice and controlled.<br><br>This fall when I got this year’s crop of 7th graders, they were different. I had no idea what to expect since this was really the first year we could expect full contact, no restrictions, and what should have been a relatively normal year. These were the first 7th graders we got who had not been in 4th grade when the world went to shit in spring 2020. <br><br>Since this is a post about those differences, here you go:<br>1. Probably the biggest misbehaviors I saw were several instances of full-blown meltdowns. These were kids completely losing control, wait in corner in fetal position wailing. Which I never saw a single time pre-COVID.<br>2. I also had an increased amount of students claiming to be suicidal without any prompting from me or anything that was going on around them. Again, I never ran into this pre-COVID.<br>3. Tons of kids who have been held back one, two, sometimes even three grade levels. I had never seen this pre-COVID.<br>4. A lack of maturity and an overall lack of common sense. For example, I had one kid who had been to school for over two months and was still incapable of figuring out their schedule and being in the correct classroom at the correct time. I also never had that many kids who couldn’t follow basic rules and instructions.<br>5. An inability to use the foreign concept of time when determining on how long a task will take. For example, it takes a couple of minutes to get to the next classroom so maybe you should go to the restroom before the bell rings. Or, maybe an essay will take over 10 minutes so you should probably start that now instead of waiting for the last 10 minutes of class. This was never an issue pre-COVID.<br>6. Probably the most extreme was the amount of kids with extreme academic gaps. I had several kids who were illiterate; not Dyslexic, not even functionally illiterate, completely and utterly illiterate. Not to mention numerous kids who were functionally illiterate, who couldn’t count past 100, couldn’t do basic addition or subtraction, etc. <br>7. More kids than ever before identified as different neurodivergent disorders.<br><br>So that’s my experience. I’m sure there are going to be a ton of comments saying this is due to the deteriorating nature of society and I’m sure there are plenty of teachers who have seen some if not most of this. But I’m really thinking the major issue here was the lack of socialization and structure kids received during the isolation years.