Living History: RI Public School Students Reflect on the Year-and-a-Half That Changed Everything

Jennifer, 17, junior at Mount Pleasant High School (virtual, then in-person), Providence

It was a Friday, I think. We were all happy because we thought it was going to be, oh, a two-week vacation. But then it was two more weeks, and then more. We were confused. We didn’t know how it was going to go.

The school gave us Chromebooks and some kids didn’t know how Chromebooks work. I’m a fast learner, so it was easy to learn how to work with it. But it was kind of complicated because some of my teachers didn’t know how to put attendance online. So I had to email them every day: “Okay, I’m here for class!” My parents are kind of strict about attendance. They live in Guatemala and have a coffee farm, and they never went to college or high school.

I just want to make them proud.

Jennifer.

In my house, we didn’t have Wi-Fi. My cousin and I figured it out, but then we forgot to pay. She’s in college right now, so she had to do all her classes online all the time, too. I live with my great aunt and my cousin. I was born in Philadelphia, but when I was eight, my parents moved back to Guatemala and I lived in Guatemala for, like, five or four years. I came back to Las Vegas with my sister, but she got married and wanted to live on her own so I came to Providence.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was not really taking it seriously. We thought we were going to come back and I was like, oh, when I get back I’ll get back to it, you know. TikTok was one of the things that distracted me a lot. I just like watching the videos and funny things.

I was uncomfortable being on camera all the time. Sometimes it was not required. Most people didn’t like to turn on the camera because they were just waking up. I also don’t have my own room. I just live in the living room. So it was kind of awkward for me because like, oh, people are seeing things in my room: “I guess that’s a couch. Is that a TV there?”

It was also lonely because my cousin is twenty-two years old, so she doesn’t hang out with me. My aunt, she only likes watching the news and she spends her time working. I felt a little depressed about it. After winter break, my cousin got sick with COVID-19, and my uncle. They took it seriously so I had to be in my room all the time. That’s when I got really depressed because I was not socializing. Especially not having my parents around. I really miss them.

If someone asked me how much I learned at the beginning, I feel like I will say nothing really. I don’t remember much. Last summer, I did Upward Bound and I can say they were more professional with virtual learning. The camera thing was not optional. It was required to turn on our cameras. If not, you’re not present in class. And we had homework every day and every week we had quizzes, so we were actually doing our work. But so many kids that used to do the program the year before didn’t attend last summer. It is voluntary, but once I start something, I want to finish it through the four years of high school. It will look good on my college resume.

In April, when we came back for in-person, we actually started learning. But because I’m in ELL (English Language Learners), I have to come every day to the school. It’s kind of hard, though, coming every day because other students are on a rotating schedule, A and B. Today is A, and it is a B day tomorrow, and tomorrow I get the same lesson as today. If you’re at home, they put you on a different lesson, which is the homework for me. I feel like I’m getting extra work than everybody else.

Last summer, I took physics at Upward Bound and this school year I’m taking physics and I’m doing very well. But the AP physics test is a different story. Some questions were relatable — what I learned in class. But some questions were really hard. Because of the pandemic and the A and B schedule, we didn’t have much time to learn every topic from physics. So we only got to the point to learn only basic physics. And we couldn’t learn about electricity and volume and things like that. We were not prepared for the test.

But it’s gotten better because now I can socialize with my friends. My best friend, I told him I didn’t know if I was coming to lunch today. He was like, “Nooo!” He’s the only friend I spend all day with every week. When he doesn’t come to school, I’ll be calling him: “Where are you? I’m not trying to be at school alone!” And we are very competitive with each other: who has more AP classes, who has more As. Right now, we are first and second in the junior class. My average right now is 96.43 and his is 96.8. I’m like: “Watch, I’m coming for you!”

Logan, 11, fifth grade at Emma G. Whiteknact Elementary School (virtual, then in-person), East Providence

I played soccer competitively. We would travel around Rhode Island. So I was so sad that I couldn’t play. I usually have games on Saturday or Sunday. One day I woke up like, “I have a game today.” But then I remembered I couldn’t go.

I think, since we were distant, we didn’t get the concepts as much as we did in person because we had it right there in front of us. Sometimes, on the computer, it got to be too much because we’re staring at a computer seven hours a day and I think I just like reading better. But after a while, it got easier and easier. We all [Logan is a triplet with sisters Laila and Savannah] actually got an achievement award after fourth grade. That was like, seven months ago.

Fifth grade is fun. It’s definitely different. Because in fourth grade, the math and English were a lot easier. But as we went to fifth grade, we started using more intelligent words and, in math, there are more confusing concepts.

Logan.

My sisters like math; they’re always quizzing each other and I’m just in my own world. In distance learning, we had some ups and downs. We were right next to each other and, in Google Meet, if we all have our volume up, it would echo. We worked, in the beginning, at the kitchen table. And then we went to our Vovo’s house and she had these little tables. Sometimes we just got sick of each other but if I didn’t get something, they could help me. In English, I would help them with book reports.

We went back to school in person but we were still on the computers all the time because of the pandemic. And if we did use paper, we had to let it sit for twenty-four hours. In September, we’re going to middle school. It’s very nerve-wracking, because it’s real school. Elementary school is just getting you used to school. Middle school is real school. We’re going to have three floors, we’re going to have lockers. Well, we’re supposed to have lockers but if the corona gets really bad, we won’t get lockers anymore. So, knock on wood, it won’t get bad again.

Brie, 15, freshman at Chariho High School (virtual, then in-person), Richmond

It was really hard being isolated away from all our friends. We couldn’t meet, we were really scared. It definitely affected my mental health, just feeling so isolated, so alone. I don’t know, I find that wasting hours, like scrolling through social media and having nothing to do, just weighs on you.

And we weren’t fluent in Google Meet or Zoom or anything. We couldn’t meet because we didn’t know how. Our teachers, they were really easy on us because everybody was struggling so much. So, yeah, it was hard transitioning to how school had been forever to the new norm.

At the beginning, we basically never had our cameras on. And I felt bad for our teachers because they were never seeing our faces. My twin sister, Isabella, and I sat in the corner of the living room and we had our backs to the windows, which we realized was not great for lighting. It was weird at first, but it was also helpful because we’d be doing the same assignments so we’d help each other. It started to become a rhythm: we’d wake up, get breakfast, go to our meetings. It was becoming something we did over and over so we got used to it, almost.

Brie.

On distance learning, it was a lot of doing stuff on your own. It was hard to ask the teacher questions. Sometimes the teacher would mute and not check the chat, stuff like that. And so you’re kind of cut off from them, almost. But other times, teachers were good about it and they’d keep in conversation. It just changed so much between classes.

In the summer of 2020, it was a lot of staying home. We got Citron [a yellow lab puppy she’s training as a guide dog for people who are blind]. My mom works in disability services at URI and there’s a puppy-raisers club there, so we got involved with that. Having her grow up, training her, going to her meetings — that was a highlight of the summer.

I also went to a protest in June that was organized by someone who wentn to Chariho. My mom’s a person of color and it just speaks to us to see the injustices that are happening. There was some resistance to it, especially in Richmond. People would drive by and they would shout things out the window. But I thought it was really well done. And actually, police officers were there to help us, too, so that was good.

I want to be a police officer because I want to be able to make change from the inside, so that way I can use that to think about both sides of the argument. I just recently read Tangled Up in Blue, and it was one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. I’m glad [Rosa Brooks] wrote an exposé about what it’s actually like. It was refreshing to hear that there are exciting stories [about being a police officer], but there’s also the everyday trauma and sadness and crime. So I thought it was a really good, realistic point of view.

In criminal justice [a career and technical education track at Chariho], we really don’t talk at all about any of the issues that are going on right now about race or anything. I feel like it should become a part of the discussion. I understand, as a freshman, it’s just kind of learning the basics. But I still think it should be incorporated a little bit, especially when we we’re learning about corrections and the prison system. We could’ve talked about mass incarceration and the disproportionate number of people of color who are in prison.

I like most of my classes, but criminal justice is probably my favorite. I remember, in the winter, we did footprint impressions and I had to do it at home and I did not know what to do. I got some mud and I put it in a shoebox, then I stepped in it and I poured some cornstarch and water mixture on it ’til it hardened and grew mold — yeah, it was really bad. Luckily, we’re doing it again now that we’re in person. I value school so much more now. You really appreciate going in now from not going in at all.

The early pandemic was overwhelming, but not everything about it was bad. People were dying from a deadly disease — horrible — but as far as being able to adapt and find new ways to connect with people and find new ways to keep yourself entertained, it definitely helped with that.

Actually, my friends and I, right now we have a Google Meet every Wednesday and Friday that we started in the winter. I see them now way more than I ever would have before, because we meet twice a week now. We just talk and we play games. Sometimes we watch shows. So that’s a really good thing that came from the pandemic.