Ever since March of 2020, COVID-19 has been a huge part of our lives. No matter what age, gender, or even what country you’re living in, COVID-19 has had an effect on you. The corona virus isn’t the only thing that has had an impact on us, it’s also been the restrictions COVID has brought us. Since this pandemic has hit us, we’ve had restrictions on everything. COVID has stolen what normal used to be, and it has given us a new normal. Today, we want to focus on how COVID has affected people in the school atmosphere, such as teachers, students, ect. We pulled Mr. Justin Brown, Band Director at Dyer County High School, and  Jake Ferguson at Dyer County High School and got their raw opinions on COVID- 19 and how it has affected them. 

For this article, we asked everyone the same basic questions as an outline to help them. We will be providing their main opinions that demonstrate how they feel on the topic. 

The first person that came to mind when we decided to interview a teacher was, of course, Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown enjoys goofing off, but when it comes to a point where it’s time to be serious, he is. He is also honest, and gives his full opinion. We asked Mr. Brown how COVID-19 has affected him as a teacher. “As a teacher, we only have our students half the time. So we have to make sure that you are doing your work at school, and when you are at home.” Mr. Brown goes further on to explain that assigning work gets more and more difficult because everyone is getting so behind. After that, we asked him how he felt about COVID-19 as a whole, and if he believes it is exaggerated or not. “The whole reaction of this is ridiculous. Yes people are getting it, yes it is real, and yes it can be dangerous, BUT this is no different from the flu, and I  have no issue saying that..We are letting this effect us more than we should” Mr. Brown was saying, the flu and COVID numbers are so different; more people get the flu than COVID. Just like the flu, it is really only harmful to the elderly and the young children. “Why are we having this reaction if this happens every year with the flu?”, says Mr. Brown.  

Next up, we interviewed student Jake Ferguson. We first asked him how COVID affected him as a student. “We have no social time with each other. The hallways are always clear, lunches are smaller, and we can’t even see our friends because of the staggered schedules.” He also goes on to say, “I get more work than last year, probably twice as much, just because we’re on the staggered schedule. It’s not even about making good grades, it’s about trying to get through the year until it’s all over.” We also asked Jake if he believed COVID-19 was exaggerated or not, and he proceeded to reply with, “I think there is a virus, and I think it is real, but I dont think its a legitimate threat to us…I think it is blown out a little bit, but I think there’s still a virus there.” Jake believes that COVID is in fact a real thing, but it may be a little exaggerated.

So there it is! The point of view of COVID-19 from a teacher and a student. Both individuals both stated that there is for sure a virus, but it is definitely blown up, so called to say. COVID-19 has impacted the school system as a whole, making our day to day lives different. COVID-19 has been all we have known for about eight months now. It has affected everyone, and we hope that someday things will go back to normal. The opinions stated in this article were just to give you a sneak peek on how COVID-19 has affected the students and teachers of our school. Everyone stay safe and healthy!