To the Editor
During a routine phone conversation, my mom informed me that a recent graduate from a peer high school had committed suicide earlier in the week. This was the fifth suicide in our circle in 2022. “It feels like my generation has failed your generation,” she said.
My peers and I feel increasingly helpless in our ability to survive in this world and make a difference in its future, given the constant threat of a pandemic, worsening climate crisis and ceaseless war.
We cannot be our best selves in school. We are exhausted, angry, isolated, and despairing. We are not OK.
Educational institutions must keep in mind the impact of current events on adolescents’ mental health. I believe that my peers and I are capable of learning, but we receive and process information differently than students from previous generations — or even from five years ago. We need standards that aren’t necessarily looser but that are appropriate to the student experience in the digital age and the pandemic.
Lindsay Carlin
Palo Alto, Calif.
The writer is a Stanford University freshman.
To the Editor
Jonathan Malesic’s essay makes for discouraging reading. It’s amazing to me how different he describes the disengagement from my experience between March 2020 and June 2021 when I taught undergraduates entirely through Zoom and other internet resources.
My courses were small and discussion-based. I was amazed at how my students felt more motivated in class, even after the panicky start of the emergency shift online. They were able to join class from their bedrooms and live at home.
To help me shape the discussion, they were required to write a comment on each class’ readings several hours before I met. The students had a greater understanding of the issues than before the online transition.
Source: NY Times
