Author: Samantha (Page 6 of 11)

It all started in the year 1901 the first published peanut butter jelly sandwich reference by Julia Davis Chandler.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are some of the most practical and easiest snacks to make. They are quite delicious and filling, usually popular with children and I’d say with myself too.  In the late 1920s, “Gustav Papendick invented a process for slicing and wrapping bread. Sliced bread meant that children could male sandwiches themselves without slicing the bread with a potentially dangerous knife.” That is a marvelous invention, the ability to have children make their sandwiches is amazing. Making it a very popular children’s meal during the Depression, being affordable and healthy.

(Sanrey, Camille), (Goudeau,Sebastian), (Stanczak, Arnaud), (Darnon, Céline). “A Two-Sided Lockdown? Social Class Variations in the Implementation of Homeschooling During the COVID-19 Lockdown”.  ront. Psychol., 27, October. 2021

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.670722/full

The worldwide pandemic otherwise known as COVID 19 affected so much of society in many different ways. To start with the first wave of the pandemic which was like a slap of reality, was the closing of schools. Students who regularly go to school and socialize with their friends and teachers had to forcefully participate and adapt to online learning.  Not only the students had to adapt to this new way of learning but also the teachers, to a new way of teaching, and parents to participate in their child’s learning experience and their presence of being home.  The article, “Social Class Variations in the Implementation of Homeschooling During the COVID-19 lockdown, 2021), states, “This situation places a heavy responsibility on parents (Lee et al., 2021), and recent studies have documented that the lockdown has increased the risk of parental stress (Griffith, 2020; Spinelli et al., 2020) and parenting-related exhaustion (Marchetti et al., 2020). In addition, higher levels of depression and anxiety have been observed among parents and children than in normal times.” We see that in this article, not only did students have to adapt to online learning but to their parents being able to homeschool them. This pandemic not only affected families physically but also mentally, some students did not feel well knowing that they were learning via a laptop and zoom meetings, parents felt the stress they had with not only providing for their family but also the responsibility of their children’s education at home.  The article also states regarding parents and children their social class, “the lower the parents’ social position, the lower the digital equipment and the less the parents felt capable of homeschooling. Finally, the higher the social position of the families, the more children spent time doing activities considered to be “educationally profitable,” and the less they spent time doing “unprofitable activities.”  A survey was taken and we see that students of the upper class had more attention to their studies and way of learning via their parents or other resources they had the opportunities with.  Even if all parents were involved in helping their children with learning, higher social position parents were better equipped both materially and psychologically to face the challenge of homeschooling.

How many ways did Covid-19 affect each social class? One way would be the process of online school, a new form of way of learning for students who had never experienced zoom meetings and online test-taking. Now had to make it their daily education, resulting in parents taking roles as educators. The start of the pandemic was not easy at all, people were going crazy, schools shut down, some students did not have wifi at home, families were moving, people were getting fired, businesses were closing. Those that belonged to the upper class did not get to suffer as much as the working class and the lower class. The article provides information on how parents were also highly affected during these times involving education and their mental health. The problem was working and staying home at the same time to make sure their child was learning adequately in a proper learning space. The upper class felt physically and more psychologically prepared to take this task, while the other classes felt stressed and fell into depression. I would like to point out the differences in social classes via homeschooling during the pandemic. I believe students of all upper classes should have the opportunity to earn without the lack of wifi and a device so they could do their work. Parents needed a warning, how about some classes for the parents on how to handle this going on at home, or something to at least guide them. “For example, in the United States in 2019, 41% of working-class families did not own a computer, compared to 8% of upper-middle-class families”. Upper-middle-class families not only live better with more space to study, they also have better digital equipment. Although this problem regarding digital equipment between classes has decreased over time, working-class families are still less equipped than upper-middle-class families. Making them more likely to be partially or totally excluded from the digital world.

The worldwide pandemic that hit NYC in 2019 was one of the scariest times for my family and me. When schools closed in march It almost felt like a wake-up call letting me know that I was living through a pandemic that would make history. All I remember is thinking of how back in school we learned about the Black Death,  killing millions of Europeans during the middle ages. When masks started coming into the picture, I remember wearing the most protective mask when going out to buy groceries. The panic in people was very evident, my family started stocking up our food pantry. I was starting to see myself as one of the plague doctors, who wore a mask with a bird-like beak to protect them from being infected by the Black Death. Flashback to when my sisters would choose me to stand on the longest Trader Joe’s line to hold our spot. I began to wonder how other families were holding up, did they have jobs, how could other families afford rent if they needed someone to take care of their children and they couldn’t leave them alone at home. There were also many obstacles some families had to face going through many situations. Then I started to think of those from the upper class, were they worried? Did they also have panic for toilet paper? Or were they all just going about their same lives?. I wondered how could this be possible, the difference of social classes in New York, yet how close we were. For example, I live in Marine Park, Brooklyn but 15 minutes away from me are the projects. A lot of people know that those areas are not the best for children or families, but it is affordable. I wondered how the government was going to react to all of this closing of businesses and how many employees that support their families off of those businesses going to survive. I expect to find the upper class knowing much more than the middle and lower class, known by the terms of vaccination status and much more. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if I see more benefits from the upper class, but what I do know that is very surprising is that some people from the lower middle class got into investing and something very tech and innovative that they bumped up to the upper class. That is what I find so interesting, did families suffer? Did families have to decide whether they visit the hospital or go find work? I feel like this is valuable information, not only did this pandemic have a bad outcome because of so many deaths and restrictions. But it also tested all our communications as classes, how did each student from each social class do with online learning. I know when you were learning at home, you had to have your quiet place where you would focus and do school work, but I also do know kids didn’t have that space at home. What was very useful is that some internet services would provide wifi for your home if you were a student and didn’t have wifi access, or the department of education would loan devices. This undertakes with so many of my questions for the upper class, were they even affected at all?. Did the families worry about getting infected? Or how this would affect their children’s education? I do plan on challenging my assumptions, I feel like there is always going to be stuff and information traveling around this world that we don’t know about.

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