It is difficult to express the loss of time and contact that occurred during the past 2 years of Covid. We have all experienced the loss of personal contact; the loss of our routines; the loss of touch with people we are close with; the loss of holidays; the loss of normal!
We learned how to communicate through new computerized systems, and however impersonal, make them personal. We tried to educate and therapize on these systems. Some worked, some did not.
School-age children lost out on learning. That is the biggest outcome of this pandemic. We left people behind. We specifically left children without efficient computer system technology or the internet out of the learning process. Now we are learning just how far behind these children have been left.
I know in my practice there are more children coming in with deep learning and reading issues that lacked remediation or therapy during the pandemic.
I tried my best to provide the best services under the circumstances, but now we must look at the problems that have arisen during the pandemic and look for ways to solve them so these children will succeed in the years to come. We need to provide and enrich their lives through the books and materials they did not receive for 2 years. They need the personal contact they missed, the one-on-one contact that is face to face. What a difference a year makes. There are smiling kids coming into my office now.
I can see and feel the smiles. We are working harder than ever to make up for the lost time. Because there was lost time and learning. Literacy rates and test scores are definitely showing that a lack of true classroom experience has caused social and learning setbacks in many children.
However, we will work hard and bring to these kids the missing moments they acquired during this pandemic and they will thrive again!
Here’s to a new future with health and good learning for generations of children. We will succeed again!