Alveena Nadeem
Editor
Pythagorean theorems, punctuation marks or the pandemic?
It is an easy choice: one that teachers and students at Dyersburg High School make every day. Class discussions stray from the lesson plan into school phase changes, types of masks and COVID-19 headlines. With the virus invading every part of life, it is a struggle to talk about much else. Students leave school with unsolved equations, the virus (not literally, I hope) on their lips.
“It is often the topic of conversation in the majority of my classes,” senior Anniyah Boyd said.
“It’s a waste of time to learn about the virus during class,” senior Nik Rockstead said.
But are these conversations truly worthless?
“My teachers have been talking about the virus a lot because they think students aren’t taking it seriously enough and eventually everyone is going to get sick,” senior Elijah Mallard said.
School’s purpose is to educate students so they are prepared for their futures. If students’ futures--careers, colleges, technical schools--balance on the coronavirus, is it not important to talk about it? Is that not how students can be prepared for whatever this ever-changing virus may bring?
“Some people don’t understand what’s really going on and they need others to clarify things and answer their questions. It is best to understand something about what’s going on in the world than to go out into the world and be clueless,” junior Daisha Terry said.
Yet the uncertainty that makes the virus an important topic of conversation is why it should not be focused on during class. Though academics seem small in the face of a global pandemic, they will always be there. Grammar, Newton’s laws and trigonometry are immune to COVID-19. They will live as unchanging truths necessary to education. To be ready to tackle what we do not know, it is crucial to be well-prepared for the obstacles we do know.
That does not mean the virus should be ignored or tabooed. Addressing it is not only necessary, but it is also irresistible. Instead, we should learn to weave it into classwork: write essays about pandemics, draw graphs of coronavirus cases and analyze the diagram of a virus. Coronavirus does not mean a stop in education.
Pythagorean theorems, punctuation or the pandemic?
I say all of the above.
Photo by Alveena Nadeem
Seniors Kathy Tran, Kamil Yousuf and Laython Holder must sit six feet apart with their masks on during AP Research, a class that is based on group work. Such changes are difficult to ignore.
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