When eighth grader Eric Leaf started out middle school at UPrep he was an excited, eager student, but COVID-19 proved to be a challenge for him (and others) to overcome over the last three years. Leaf, a current UPrep eighth grader, has had to be very resilient throughout his middle school career.
“ I could see maturity and growth throughout that” Brent Slattengren, Leaf’s adviser said.
Leaf started out like all other UPrep sixth graders he liked the school and enjoyed the people there.
“Eric came in as a very typical sixth grader, he was excited. He was really into his friends,” Brent Slatts, Leaf’s advisor said.
Due to the impacts of COVID-19 2020 students had to go online. This limited the interaction between students and led students to become antisocial and reserved.
Students were “Being more seclusive, less openness because of spending more time online,” Leaf said.
COVID-19, online learning and being forced to live inside were bad for individuals mental health. People don’t really have the opportunity to be with other humans because they have to stay safe.
“You spend a lot of time in your room on your device and it’s just not healthy for any of us I feel,” Slattengren said.
When the summer came after Leaf’s sixth grade year,he felt he could get out of his shell at the camp he attended and talk to others and convey his ideas better.
“Summer was all in person, no iPads, no paper,” Leaf said.
Slattengren also noticed an improvement in Leaf’s public speaking and conversation skills after having a summer of being offline.
“His verbal presentation skills really were at the top of the class. He did really really well,”Slatts said.
Because of the tough times of COVID-19 and Leaf had become resilient and grew and changed.
Christina Zembruski, the current dean of eighth grade shared her insight to show that what happened to Leaf wasn’t an isolated case.
“I think one big thing I’ve noticed is it took a longer time for like friend groups to shift or expand because you went online in March of your sixth grade year, there was kind of a staying with the group of friends you made early on in sixth grade”
Zembruski said. “Students were socializing less and people were less willing to open up to others due to the fact that they weren’t able to interact with each other as much,”
This is similar to how Leaf felt that he wasn’t
“I think the biggest thing covid has impacted is just say, the opportunities for socialization,” said Zembruski
Zembruski reasons that the slight unwillingness to shift friend groups might just be the values of the class of 2026 and something that the class does anyways even without the influence of COVID-19.
As Dean of eighth grade Zembruski is planning eighth grade celebrations such as the camping trip so that students can have more opportunities for socialization