“During these unprecedented times” is a phrase I can guarantee you’ve heard hundreds if not thousands of times. It seems to have become one of the most used statements of all time. A close second is probably some variation of “Well because of the pandemic…” It follows us through every aspect of our lives. A nationwide decrease in standardized test scores, students bullying each other, teachers struggling to maintain an attentive class for a 50-minute period, and all of these things always seem to come back to the infamous pandemic.
The days of relying on COVID-19 as an excuse are long over. The virus has integrated itself so deeply into our vocabulary that it has lost real meaning, and has been reduced to a shallow justification for our shortcomings.
Perhaps, at some point, there was some validity in attributing lowered test scores or discomfort in a classroom setting to the pandemic. However, the continued use of COVID-19 to explain these occurrences has diluted its value. Very few things can still be effectively defended by the lingering effects of the pandemic.
COVID-19 allowed people to cast blame on something other than themselves, for everything. Grades, behavior, and self-sufficiency were all lumped into one category and detached from the individual’s realm of responsibility. For a while, this made sense. It’s undeniable that everyone’s lives were deeply impacted in some way when the world shut down. People absolutely suffered. But has COVID-19 become a security blanket for us? A crutch we can lean on when we don’t want to accept blame for our faults? It seems that we as a society have lost sight of the real impacts of the pandemic, and have chosen instead to abuse its emotionally charged connotation.
What was once an understandable explanation for changes in our daily performance has become an empty excuse for the fact that people no longer hold themselves to a high standard. Nearly seven million people lost their lives to COVID-19. Yet, there are people who still feel justified in tying their low ACT score to the same virus that claimed those lives? The real lasting effect of the pandemic is not low test scores or behavioral struggles; it is a drastic loss of accountability in everything we do.
