Breaking Down the Digital Divide
We all remember what we were doing at the initiation of the quarantine in March of 2020. Junior-year me could have never guessed the road ahead after rejoicing at my SAT test date being canceled, but wherever we find ourselves now, we all associate the pandemic with hardship of some sort. That quarantine brought with it countless losses for all of us, and from an educational standpoint, we all had to make adjustments to a revolutionary change in the system.
Despite the hardship the pandemic brought as a whole, I at least found relief in school; it never became easier in my experience. I already had a solid background with technology to know all the tricks, exploits, and unhealthy habits that made the online learning experience as fun and lazy as possible. I was the type on Zoom that had one monitor on his Physics lecture with FIFA 20 Ultimate Team on the other, the one who accidentally left his mic unmuted while laughing at YouTube videos on the side, the last to leave the meeting because he took a nap throughout the class. In hindsight, the foundation I stood on was merely one end of a partition that continued to grow in its distance throughout the pandemic. The fortunate end of a "digital divide" between socio-economic privilege and disadvantage, technological literacy and illiteracy, access to educational resources and lack thereof. This divide has long-standing effects on the trajectory of our nation and requires urgent attention.
The "digital divide" refers to the gap between demographics and regions with access to modern technology and those without it, and the pandemic has posed a significant influence over the evolution of this divide with respect to race and class especially. According to a 2019 analysis by Associated Press, Vox senior reporter Anna North relates that about 17 percent of students nationwide lack a computer at home and eighteen percent without broadband internet access, "with low-income families and families of color especially likely to be without these resources." Combine these factors with meeting the needs of multiple children adjusting to the online experience, a lack of physical space in lower-income areas, high death rates in Black communities as well as high rates of layoffs among low-wage workers, and you have a situation that strays further and further from the gold-standard of equitable, accessible education. While in theory, the shift to online learning provided a unique opportunity to make learning a universally comfortable, affordable, and effective experience, it is an unfortunate reality that schools have been unable to realize this potential. In a hodgepodge response to the pandemic, schools have only increased the demands on students in an already historic vulnerable period, sending home piles of worksheets and providing uninspiring Zoom lectures. Given the strong connection between academic performance and future economic outcomes, it is clear that the coronavirus crisis has only made it more of a challenge for these underprivileged backgrounds to ever be overcome. This is the long-standing implication of the pandemic on education – where education has the potential to be a vessel for opportunities and promising futures, it has become an added source of dread and burden.
Behind all the icons in the Zoom lectures we've attended since the pandemic's arrival are humans. They are all with their respective struggles, trauma, and losses they have been attempting to recover from, and this is especially so for families of color and low income. We must take this moment to assess, not just as privileged observers from the other side of a digital divide, but as humans addressing a worsening crisis of national proportions. With New York providing regional enrichment centers for the homeless and the Charleston District of South Carolina strengthening wifi signals at schools to address the issue of internet access, efforts are thankfully being made that we can use as a model for our local communities to ask the following questions: Are efforts being made to alleviate the socio-economic burden of our neighbors to promote their success? Are our school districts providing the necessary resources to uphold the educational gold standard? Are our teachers using these vulnerable times to instill core values and ethics into our education following this period of worldwide instability?
This reflection was written by Hamza Ali, a member of the 2022 Internship class. “The shift to online learning could worsen educational inequality“ by Anna North is linked below!
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/9/21200159/coronavirus-school-digital-low-income-students-covid-new-york
