lockdown experience essay in english for students

COVID-19 Lockdown: My Experience

When the lockdown started, I was ecstatic. My final year of school had finished early, exams were cancelled, the sun was shining. I was happy, and confident I would be OK. After all, how hard could staying at home possibly be? After a while, the reality of the situation started to sink in.

The novelty of being at home wore off and I started to struggle. I suffered from regular panic attacks, frozen on the floor in my room, unable to move or speak. I had nightmares most nights, and struggled to sleep. It was as if I was stuck, trapped in my house and in my own head. I didn't know how to cope.

However, over time, I found ways to deal with the pressure. I realised that lockdown gave me more time to the things I loved, hobbies that had been previously swamped by schoolwork. I started baking, drawing and writing again, and felt free for the first time in months. I had forgotten how good it felt to be creative. I started spending more time with my family. I hadn't realised how much I had missed them.

Almost a month later, I feel so much better. I understand how difficult this must be, but it's important to remember that none of us is alone. No matter how scared, or trapped, or alone you feel, things can only get better.  Take time to revisit the things you love, and remember that all of this will eventually pass. All we can do right now is stay at home, look after ourselves and our loved ones, and look forward to a better future.

View the discussion thread.

Related Stories

Looking back on lockdown days

Art class and self care during the pandemic

We'll Walk Together

A Race to What Finish Line

C 2019 Voices of Youth. All Rights Reserved. 

Read student blogs about student life and the Brighton university experience

My lockdown experience

My experience of lockdown as a student has had its ups and downs, as you would imagine. Being confined to our homes with no outside social interactions with fellow humans has been tough and goes against our human nature.

Nothing compares with going to university for the first time and experiencing the full uni student life of interacting with friends and lecturers. While a global pandemic has brought this all to a halt, I have been lucky enough to have a family that continues to support me during these uncertain times, and who always allow me the time and space I’ve needed over these past months to study independently .    

University study online

I am currently in my second year of a Sport and Exercise Science degree with ongoing final assessments which haven’t been all that bad for me during lockdown. I like to think of myself as a hard-working grafter when it comes to essay writing. I have been able to quickly adapt to a remote learning platform, and the university has done a phenomenal job by making the content easily accessible. This has been essential in continuing my studies at an incredible speed with assessment deadlines hovering overhead.  

Staying active

My knowledge and experience in exercise and health has allowed me to continue to keep my health and well-being in check. Having trained many clients in home-based exercises in the past, this gave me the confidence and incentive to implement my own home routine while juggling my studies. However, keeping my mind actively engaged was no easy task with often arduous 1000+ repetition push-ups, sit-ups, and squats variations per week  and running a half marathon runs on a whim! Exercise has primarily been my lifeline through these times, keeping boredom and my belly size at bay. But don’t get me wrong – I’ve had my binge eating and movie marathon days like most through these unprecedented times.  

With all this said, I’ve kept a positive head, always looking towards the current challenge of lockdown as an adaptive learning experience that we’re all faced with. As my motto goes “always live to learn, to try and fail, but most of all, keeping it real”.

• For further information and mental health support, visit our section for student wellbeing section.

Share this:

↞ Previous Post

Next Post ↠

Subscribe By Email

Get a weekly email of all new posts.

Your Email Leave this field blank

This form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

We use cookies to personalise content, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. Read our detailed cookie policy

Life During Lockdown Essay for Students – 100, 500, 1000+ Words, & 10 Lines

Life During Lockdown Essay for Students: Explore the challenges, experiences, and lessons learned during the pandemic with “Life During Lockdown Essay for Students.” Understand the impact on education, mental health, and daily life, as students navigate through this unprecedented period.

Reflect on resilience, adaptability, and the importance of community support. Discover insights into remote learning, coping mechanisms, and maintaining social connections in the face of isolation. This Life During Lockdown Essay for Students delves into the unique aspects of students’ lives during lockdown, offering a comprehensive perspective on this transformative period.

Table of Contents

Life During Lockdown Essay in English for Students in 10 Lines

Explore the transformative journey of students during lockdown in “Life During Lockdown Essay for Students.” This Life During Lockdown Essay for Students encapsulates the challenges, adaptations, and resilience displayed by students, providing a comprehensive Life During Lockdown Essay for Students in view of their unique experiences in just 10 lines.

• Shift to Online Learning: With schools and colleges closed, education shifted to virtual platforms like Zoom and Google Meet.
• Work from Home: Many adults adapted to remote work setups, blurring the lines between personal and professional spaces.
• Increased Family Time: Lockdowns brought families together, fostering stronger bonds and shared activities.
• Rediscovery of Hobbies: People explored new hobbies or revisited old ones, finding solace in activities like painting, reading, or gardening.
• Digital Fatigue: Excessive screen time for work, classes, and socializing led to digital fatigue and burnout.
• Heightened Awareness of Health: The pandemic underscored the importance of physical and mental health, leading to increased focus on well-being.
• Challenges of Isolation: Social distancing measures caused feelings of isolation, emphasizing the need for human connection.
• Economic Uncertainty: Many faced financial challenges due to job losses or economic downturns during the pandemic.
• Reflection and Self-Discovery: The quieter pace of life allowed individuals to reflect on their goals and priorities, prompting self-discovery.
• Community Support: Acts of kindness and community support became prominent, with neighbors helping each other during challenging times.

Also See – Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Essay – 100, 500, 1000 Words & 10 Lines

Life During Lockdown Essay for Students in 100 Words

Amidst the lockdown, students experienced a unique blend of challenges and opportunities. From adapting to virtual learning to discovering new hobbies, this Life During Lockdown Essay for Students delves into the multifaceted aspects of their lives during this unprecedented time.

The life of students during the lockdown was a paradigm shift, transforming traditional classrooms into virtual spaces. Adjusting to online learning, students navigated a digital landscape for education and social interaction. The challenges were met with innovation, as virtual classrooms became the new norm. Beyond academics, the lockdown encouraged self-reflection and personal growth.

Students adapted, honing their resilience and creativity. Despite the uncertainties, the experience unveiled new opportunities for learning, collaboration, and adapting to the evolving educational landscape. The lockdown period will be remembered as a time of transformation, where students not only faced challenges but also discovered their capacity to overcome and thrive in an ever-changing world.

Life During Lockdown in English Essay for Students in 500 Words

This Life During Lockdown Essay for Students explores the transformative journey of students during the lockdown, covering aspects such as online education, mental health, and personal growth. Life During Lockdown Essay for Students delves into the challenges faced and the resilience displayed, offering a comprehensive perspective on the student experience during this extraordinary period.

Life During Lockdown: Navigating Challenges and Discovering Resilience

The onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented disruption to normal life, profoundly impacting students and their educational journeys. As classrooms shifted to virtual spaces, students faced a myriad of challenges, yet amidst the chaos emerged stories of resilience and personal growth.

The abrupt transition to online education was a significant hurdle for many students. Technological limitations, internet connectivity issues, and adapting to new learning platforms became recurrent obstacles. However, amidst these challenges, students displayed commendable adaptability. They quickly learned to navigate virtual tools, collaborate effectively in a digital environment, and manage their time efficiently.

The toll on mental health was palpable. Isolation, uncertainty about the future, and the pressure to adapt to new educational norms contributed to heightened stress levels among students. Yet, this period of upheaval also revealed the strength of the human spirit. Many students sought mental health support, and communities rallied together to foster emotional well-being.

The lockdown also provided a unique opportunity for personal reflection and growth. With the constraints of daily routines lifted, students delved into hobbies and passions, rediscovering interests that had been neglected in the hustle of pre-pandemic life. This newfound free time became a catalyst for personal development beyond academic pursuits.

Family dynamics underwent a significant transformation. With extended periods spent at home, students found themselves in the midst of increased family bonding. Shared experiences, conversations, and collaborative activities became integral to this period, fostering stronger familial ties and creating enduring memories.

As students navigated these challenges, they reflected on their priorities. The lockdown became a time of introspection, prompting individuals to reconsider their career goals, academic pursuits, and personal aspirations. Many emerged from this period with a more intentional approach to life, understanding the importance of balance and well-being.

The lessons learned during this period are invaluable, shaping not only the trajectory of education but also the personal development and priorities of students around the globe. As the world moves beyond the pandemic, these experiences will continue to influence how students approach education and life’s challenges in the future.

Life During Lockdown Essay for Students in 1000+ Words

This comprehensive Life During Lockdown Essay for Students delves into the multifaceted experiences of students during the global lockdown, exploring the challenges faced, the lessons learned, and the transformative journey towards personal and academic growth.

Introduction

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 led to unprecedented global challenges, prompting governments worldwide to implement lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus.

This essay delves into the multifaceted aspects of life during lockdown, exploring the challenges faced by individuals and communities, the shift to remote work and online education, the impact on mental health, and the resilience demonstrated in adapting to the “new normal.”

Challenges Faced During Lockdown

Social Isolation

One of the immediate and palpable challenges of lockdown was social isolation. The restrictions on movement and gatherings meant that people were cut off from their social circles, friends, and extended families. The absence of face-to-face interactions led to feelings of loneliness and a longing for human connection.

Economic Uncertainty

Lockdowns had a severe impact on the global economy, leading to job losses, furloughs, and economic uncertainty for millions. Small businesses faced closures, and various industries experienced significant setbacks. The sudden economic downturn left individuals and families grappling with financial stress and uncertainty about the future.

Education Disruption

Schools and universities worldwide had to adapt swiftly to the new reality of remote learning. The sudden shift to online education posed challenges for both students and educators. Limited access to resources, varying levels of technological proficiency, and the absence of the traditional classroom environment made the learning experience challenging for many.

Work-from-Home Challenges

Remote work became the norm for many professionals, introducing a new set of challenges. Balancing work responsibilities with household chores, the lack of a clear boundary between work and personal life, and the technological adjustments required for effective collaboration presented hurdles for individuals navigating this new work paradigm.

Adapting to Remote Work and Online Education

Remote Work Dynamics

While the sudden transition to remote work posed initial challenges, it also highlighted the adaptability and resilience of individuals and organizations. Video conferencing tools, collaborative platforms, and flexible work hours became integral to maintaining productivity and communication.

Online Education Innovations

Educational institutions embraced technology to ensure continuity in learning. Virtual classrooms, online assessments, and interactive learning platforms became essential components of the educational landscape. The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital tools in education, prompting innovation in pedagogical approaches.

Digital Connectivity

The importance of digital connectivity became more apparent than ever. High-speed internet, online communication tools, and digital platforms became lifelines for individuals working and studying remotely. The digital divide, however, underscored the need for equitable access to technology.

Impact on Mental Health

Isolation and Anxiety

The isolation imposed by lockdowns took a toll on mental health. Anxiety, depression, and feelings of helplessness became prevalent as individuals grappled with uncertainties about the future, health concerns, and the disruption of routine.

Work-Life Balance Challenges

Remote work, while offering flexibility, also blurred the boundaries between professional and personal life. Many individuals found it challenging to establish a work-life balance, leading to burnout and increased stress levels.

Educational Stress

Students faced unique challenges, including the pressure of adapting to online learning, concerns about academic performance, and the absence of the social support traditionally provided by the school environment.

Resilience and Adaptability

Community Support

Communities around the world demonstrated resilience by coming together to support one another. Mutual aid groups, online forums, and community initiatives emerged to provide assistance, share resources, and foster a sense of solidarity.

Innovation and Creativity

The pandemic spurred innovation in various fields. From virtual events and conferences to innovative approaches in education, individuals and organizations showcased creativity in adapting to the constraints imposed by lockdown.

Digital Transformation Acceleration

Businesses and institutions accelerated their digital transformation efforts. E-commerce, telehealth, and virtual services saw increased adoption, reflecting the adaptability of industries in responding to the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Life during lockdown presented a myriad of challenges, from social isolation to economic uncertainties and disruptions in education and work. However, amidst these challenges, individuals and communities showcased remarkable resilience and adaptability. The embrace of remote work and online education, coupled with the acceleration of digital transformation, highlighted the capacity for innovation and creativity in the face of adversity.

As societies gradually emerge from the throes of the pandemic, the lessons learned during lockdown underscore the importance of building resilient systems, prioritizing mental health, and fostering a sense of community. The shared experience of navigating life during lockdown serves as a testament to the collective strength of humanity and the potential for positive transformation in the face of global challenges.

the Life During Lockdown Essay for Students serves as a poignant testament to the resilience and adaptability that define the human spirit. As students navigated the uncharted waters of remote learning, disrupted routines, and the emotional toll of isolation, they discovered hidden strengths within themselves. The challenges posed by the pandemic became catalysts for growth, fostering adaptability and fortitude.

The diverse narratives shared by students underscore the universality of the human experience during these trying times. From moments of frustration to unexpected joys and self-realization, the Life During Lockdown Essay for Students encapsulates the spectrum of emotions and lessons learned.

As the world gradually emerges from the shadows of the pandemic, these insights into life during lockdown become invaluable markers of endurance and perseverance.

This Life During Lockdown Essay for Students not only chronicles the challenges faced by students but also emphasizes the profound lessons embedded in adversity. Life During Lockdown Essay for Students stands as a testament to the resilience cultivated amid uncertainty, providing a hopeful outlook for the future.

Related Essays

Essay on Modern Indian Woman – 100, 500, 1000 Words, 10 Lines

Essay on Future of English in India – 10 Lines, 500 & 1000 Words

Essay on Bhai Dooj – 10 Lines, 100, 500, 1000 Words

Essay About Ooty – 10 Lines, 500 & 1000 Words

Draupadi Murmu Essay – 10 Lines, 100, 500, 1000 Words

Computer Essay – Short Essay, 10 Lines, 500 & 1000 Words

Leave a comment cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Writing about COVID-19 in a college admission essay

by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

Print article

For students applying to college using the CommonApp, there are several different places where students and counselors can address the pandemic’s impact. The different sections have differing goals. You must understand how to use each section for its appropriate use.

The CommonApp COVID-19 question

First, the CommonApp this year has an additional question specifically about COVID-19 :

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces. Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

This question seeks to understand the adversity that students may have had to face due to the pandemic, the move to online education, or the shelter-in-place rules. You don’t have to answer this question if the impact on you wasn’t particularly severe. Some examples of things students should discuss include:

• The student or a family member had COVID-19 or suffered other illnesses due to confinement during the pandemic.
• The candidate had to deal with personal or family issues, such as abusive living situations or other safety concerns
• The student suffered from a lack of internet access and other online learning challenges.
• Students who dealt with problems registering for or taking standardized tests and AP exams.

Jeff Schiffman of the Tulane University admissions office has a blog about this section. He recommends students ask themselves several questions as they go about answering this section:

• Are my experiences different from others’?
• Are there noticeable changes on my transcript?
• Am I aware of my privilege?
• Am I specific? Am I explaining rather than complaining?
• Is this information being included elsewhere on my application?

If you do answer this section, be brief and to-the-point.

Counselor recommendations and school profiles

Second, counselors will, in their counselor forms and school profiles on the CommonApp, address how the school handled the pandemic and how it might have affected students, specifically as it relates to:

• Grading scales and policies
• Graduation requirements
• Instructional methods
• Schedules and course offerings
• Testing requirements
• Your academic calendar
• Other extenuating circumstances

Students don’t have to mention these matters in their application unless something unusual happened.

Writing about COVID-19 in your main essay

Write about your experiences during the pandemic in your main college essay if your experience is personal, relevant, and the most important thing to discuss in your college admission essay. That you had to stay home and study online isn’t sufficient, as millions of other students faced the same situation. But sometimes, it can be appropriate and helpful to write about something related to the pandemic in your essay. For example:

• One student developed a website for a local comic book store. The store might not have survived without the ability for people to order comic books online. The student had a long-standing relationship with the store, and it was an institution that created a community for students who otherwise felt left out.
• One student started a YouTube channel to help other students with academic subjects he was very familiar with and began tutoring others.
• Some students used their extra time that was the result of the stay-at-home orders to take online courses pursuing topics they are genuinely interested in or developing new interests, like a foreign language or music.

Experiences like this can be good topics for the CommonApp essay as long as they reflect something genuinely important about the student. For many students whose lives have been shaped by this pandemic, it can be a critical part of their college application.

Want more? Read 6 ways to improve a college essay , What the &%$! should I write about in my college essay , and Just how important is a college admissions essay? .

Homes Nearby

Homes for rent and sale near schools

How our schools are (and aren't) addressing race

The truth about homework in America

What should I write my college essay about?

What the #%@!& should I write about in my college essay?

Yes! Sign me up for updates relevant to my child's grade.

Please enter a valid email address

Thank you for signing up!

Server Issue: Please try again later. Sorry for the inconvenience

What Life Was Like for Students in the Pandemic Year

• Share article

In this video, Navajo student Miles Johnson shares how he experienced the stress and anxiety of schools shutting down last year. Miles’ teacher shared his experience and those of her other students in a recent piece for Education Week. In these short essays below, teacher Claire Marie Grogan’s 11th grade students at Oceanside High School on Long Island, N.Y., describe their pandemic experiences. Their writings have been slightly edited for clarity. Read Grogan’s essay .

“Hours Staring at Tiny Boxes on the Screen”

By Kimberly Polacco, 16

I stare at my blank computer screen, trying to find the motivation to turn it on, but my finger flinches every time it hovers near the button. I instead open my curtains. It is raining outside, but it does not matter, I will not be going out there for the rest of the day. The sound of pounding raindrops contributes to my headache enough to make me turn on my computer in hopes that it will give me something to drown out the noise. But as soon as I open it up, I feel the weight of the world crash upon my shoulders.

Each 42-minute period drags on by. I spend hours upon hours staring at tiny boxes on a screen, one of which my exhausted face occupies, and attempt to retain concepts that have been presented to me through this device. By the time I have the freedom of pressing the “leave” button on my last Google Meet of the day, my eyes are heavy and my legs feel like mush from having not left my bed since I woke up.

Tomorrow arrives, except this time here I am inside of a school building, interacting with my first period teacher face to face. We talk about our favorite movies and TV shows to stream as other kids pile into the classroom. With each passing period I accumulate more and more of these tiny meaningless conversations everywhere I go with both teachers and students. They may not seem like much, but to me they are everything because I know that the next time I am expected to report to school, I will be trapped in the bubble of my room counting down the hours until I can sit down in my freshly sanitized wooden desk again.

“My Only Parent Essentially on Her Death Bed”

By Nick Ingargiola, 16

My mom had COVID-19 for ten weeks. She got sick during the first month school buildings were shut. The difficulty of navigating an online classroom was already overwhelming, and when mixed with my only parent essentially on her death bed, it made it unbearable. Focusing on schoolwork was impossible, and watching my mother struggle to lift up her arm broke my heart.

My mom has been through her fair share of diseases from pancreatic cancer to seizures and even as far as a stroke that paralyzed her entire left side. It is safe to say she has been through a lot. The craziest part is you would never know it. She is the strongest and most positive person I’ve ever met. COVID hit her hard. Although I have watched her go through life and death multiple times, I have never seen her so physically and mentally drained.

I initially was overjoyed to complete my school year in the comfort of my own home, but once my mom got sick, I couldn’t handle it. No one knows what it’s like to pretend like everything is OK until they are forced to. I would wake up at 8 after staying up until 5 in the morning pondering the possibility of losing my mother. She was all I had. I was forced to turn my camera on and float in the fake reality of being fine although I wasn’t. The teachers tried to keep the class engaged by obligating the students to participate. This was dreadful. I didn’t want to talk. I had to hide the distress in my voice. If only the teachers understood what I was going through. I was hesitant because I didn’t want everyone to know that the virus that was infecting and killing millions was knocking on my front door.

After my online classes, I was required to finish an immense amount of homework while simultaneously hiding my sadness so that my mom wouldn’t worry about me. She was already going through a lot. There was no reason to add me to her list of worries. I wasn’t even able to give her a hug. All I could do was watch.

“The Way of Staying Sane”

By Lynda Feustel, 16

Entering year two of the pandemic is strange. It barely seems a day since last March, but it also seems like a lifetime. As an only child and introvert, shutting down my world was initially simple and relatively easy. My friends and I had been super busy with the school play, and while I was sad about it being canceled, I was struggling a lot during that show and desperately needed some time off.

As March turned to April, virtual school began, and being alone really set in. I missed my friends and us being together. The isolation felt real with just my parents and me, even as we spent time together. My friends and I began meeting on Facetime every night to watch TV and just be together in some way. We laughed at insane jokes we made and had homework and therapy sessions over Facetime and grew closer through digital and literal walls.

The summer passed with in-person events together, and the virus faded into the background for a little while. We went to the track and the beach and hung out in people’s backyards.

Then school came for us in a more nasty way than usual. In hybrid school we were separated. People had jobs, sports, activities, and quarantines. Teachers piled on work, and the virus grew more present again. The group text put out hundreds of messages a day while the Facetimes came to a grinding halt, and meeting in person as a group became more of a rarity. Being together on video and in person was the way of staying sane.

In a way I am in a similar place to last year, working and looking for some change as we enter the second year of this mess.

“In History Class, Reports of Heightening Cases”

By Vivian Rose, 16

I remember the moment my freshman year English teacher told me about the young writers’ conference at Bread Loaf during my sophomore year. At first, I didn’t want to apply, the deadline had passed, but for some strange reason, the directors of the program extended it another week. It felt like it was meant to be. It was in Vermont in the last week of May when the flowers have awakened and the sun is warm.

I submitted my work, and two weeks later I got an email of my acceptance. I screamed at the top of my lungs in the empty house; everyone was out, so I was left alone to celebrate my small victory. It was rare for them to admit sophomores. Usually they accept submissions only from juniors and seniors.

That was the first week of February 2020. All of a sudden, there was some talk about this strange virus coming from China. We thought nothing of it. Every night, I would fall asleep smiling, knowing that I would be able to go to the exact conference that Robert Frost attended for 42 years.

Then, as if overnight, it seemed the virus had swung its hand and had gripped parts of the country. Every newscast was about the disease. Every day in history, we would look at the reports of heightening cases and joke around that this could never become a threat as big as Dr. Fauci was proposing. Then, March 13th came around--it was the last day before the world seemed to shut down. Just like that, Bread Loaf would vanish from my grasp.

“One Day Every Day Won’t Be As Terrible”

By Nick Wollweber, 17

COVID created personal problems for everyone, some more serious than others, but everyone had a struggle.

As the COVID lock-down took hold, the main thing weighing on my mind was my oldest brother, Joe, who passed away in January 2019 unexpectedly in his sleep. Losing my brother was a complete gut punch and reality check for me at 14 and 15 years old. 2019 was a year of struggle, darkness, sadness, frustration. I didn’t want to learn after my brother had passed, but I had to in order to move forward and find my new normal.

Routine and always having things to do and places to go is what let me cope in the year after Joe died. Then COVID came and gave me the option to let up and let down my guard. I struggled with not wanting to take care of personal hygiene. That was the beginning of an underlying mental problem where I wouldn’t do things that were necessary for everyday life.

My “coping routine” that got me through every day and week the year before was gone. COVID wasn’t beneficial to me, but it did bring out the true nature of my mental struggles and put a name to it. Since COVID, I have been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I began taking antidepressants and going to therapy a lot more.

COVID made me realize that I’m not happy with who I am and that I needed to change. I’m still not happy with who I am. I struggle every day, but I am working towards a goal that one day every day won’t be as terrible.

Coverage of social and emotional learning is supported in part by a grant from the NoVo Foundation, at www.novofoundation.org . Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage. A version of this article appeared in the March 31, 2021 edition of Education Week as What Life Was Like for Students in the Pandemic Year

Sign Up for The Savvy Principal

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

OCR homepage

Administration

• Active Results
• Interchange
• Submit for Assessment
• Teach Cambridge
• ExamBuilder
• Online Support Centre

Main navigation

Life in lockdown - my experience.

Guest post - 4 minute read

We're all living in uncertain times which has affected nearly every aspect of our lives. As we work and study from home, juggle the demands of home-schooling and live in a more isolated world it's important to remember, you're not alone.

We're sharing your stories of how you’re finding lockdown, how you look after your own mental health and any hint and tips you may have to help others during this time.

Our first blog in the series is from year 11 student, Francesca.

Pre-lockdown life

Before all this madness, I had such a busy schedule with dance training, college and getting out with my friends. I was also looking forward to starting my final year in school and prepping myself for exams and sixth form college.

I’m a really social person - you could say I love making memories, whether that’s competing in dance competitions or simply having dinner with my girls at the weekend. I never really appreciated just how much social interaction meant to me until it was taken away.

Current lockdown life

What can I say, apart from online dance training or walking my dog, (only when it’s not raining!) I haven’t been able to make many memories.

As a year 11, in these uncertain times, I’m focussing on my online learning, making sure I'm up to date with my study deadlines and staying on top of my workload. As I'm going to Sixth Form College in September, I know it's vital I enhance my independent study skills.

Fortunately, being at home 24/7 with no distractions has given me plenty of time to do this (maybe it's not been too bad after all). It’s been hard not being able to attend open evenings to view my college options, so I’ve had to make my decision purely on the course content.

I can't speak for other year 11s, but it's safe to say I was delighted to hear about the cancellation of GCSE exams this summer, that probably makes me sound very lazy - I promise I'm not. I only felt this way because during December I had my mocks. Thankfully, I did quite well, achieving 6-9s in all my subjects, but after hearing the announcement of yet another national lockdown immediately after Christmas I was hugely apprehensive and stressed that my year would be at a massive disadvantage and unprepared to sit exams.

Whatever we end up getting assessed on, I’m just happy we’re not having to go through the stress of not knowing if exams were happening or not, and I know other students would agree with this.

Motivation in lockdown #3

I cannot deny that staying motivated has been a challenge throughout these worrying times. The constant bad news of more infections is all we hear about. It’s no surprise many of my friends and I are having to come to terms with the fact we probably won't have the same summer we had planned. But as hard as that sounds, I’m feeling confident that things will only get better. I'm hoping once we come out the other side, I can start to get excited about my new college, meeting new friends, going on holidays and just spending time with the people that mean the most to me – something I have probably taken for granted but certainly won’t in the future.

For however long this lockdown lasts, I’m trying to workout as much as possible to keep my fitness levels up. I’m fortunate to have a dedicated dance studio in my garden so I am able to escape my bedroom! I have also discovered I rather like coffee and online shopping.

Spotify and Netflix are my new best friends but staying connected to my real friends has been so important to keep my mood positive. I don’t think I have ever used Snapchat or Facetime this much before in my life. Sadly, it's the only way any of us can talk and catch up with each other - so to all the parents, sorry if we’re keeping you up at night talking, we’re just having our daily lockdown chinwags.

My advice to any other teens

Accept that it’s OK to not feel motivated every day, because you have to remember this will be over eventually. It doesn't feel like it now, but we will be living our best lives soon and making up for lost time and thinking back to the days when our only conversations were ‘what time is our live lesson’, ‘see you on Zoom’ or ‘you’re on mute’ .

To other year 11s I would say to try your hardest during these times, everything counts, and it will all be worth it in the end when you get into college to study your chosen subjects. For me, I am hoping to secure the grades I need to study criminology, business and musical theatre, which I am really excited about.

Related blogs

• Resilience - ideas for resolve and resourcefulness
• Mindfulness and mental health - how to be kind to yourself this winter

How to Write About Coronavirus in a College Essay

Students can share how they navigated life during the coronavirus pandemic in a full-length essay or an optional supplement.

Writing About COVID-19 in College Essays

Getty Images

Experts say students should be honest and not limit themselves to merely their experiences with the pandemic.

The global impact of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, means colleges and prospective students alike are in for an admissions cycle like no other. Both face unprecedented challenges and questions as they grapple with their respective futures amid the ongoing fallout of the pandemic.

Colleges must examine applicants without the aid of standardized test scores for many – a factor that prompted many schools to go test-optional for now . Even grades, a significant component of a college application, may be hard to interpret with some high schools adopting pass-fail classes last spring due to the pandemic. Major college admissions factors are suddenly skewed.

"I can't help but think other (admissions) factors are going to matter more," says Ethan Sawyer, founder of the College Essay Guy, a website that offers free and paid essay-writing resources.

College essays and letters of recommendation , Sawyer says, are likely to carry more weight than ever in this admissions cycle. And many essays will likely focus on how the pandemic shaped students' lives throughout an often tumultuous 2020.

But before writing a college essay focused on the coronavirus, students should explore whether it's the best topic for them.

Writing About COVID-19 for a College Application

Much of daily life has been colored by the coronavirus. Virtual learning is the norm at many colleges and high schools, many extracurriculars have vanished and social lives have stalled for students complying with measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.

"For some young people, the pandemic took away what they envisioned as their senior year," says Robert Alexander, dean of admissions, financial aid and enrollment management at the University of Rochester in New York. "Maybe that's a spot on a varsity athletic team or the lead role in the fall play. And it's OK for them to mourn what should have been and what they feel like they lost, but more important is how are they making the most of the opportunities they do have?"

That question, Alexander says, is what colleges want answered if students choose to address COVID-19 in their college essay.

But the question of whether a student should write about the coronavirus is tricky. The answer depends largely on the student.

"In general, I don't think students should write about COVID-19 in their main personal statement for their application," Robin Miller, master college admissions counselor at IvyWise, a college counseling company, wrote in an email.

"Certainly, there may be exceptions to this based on a student's individual experience, but since the personal essay is the main place in the application where the student can really allow their voice to be heard and share insight into who they are as an individual, there are likely many other topics they can choose to write about that are more distinctive and unique than COVID-19," Miller says.

Opinions among admissions experts vary on whether to write about the likely popular topic of the pandemic.

"If your essay communicates something positive, unique, and compelling about you in an interesting and eloquent way, go for it," Carolyn Pippen, principal college admissions counselor at IvyWise, wrote in an email. She adds that students shouldn't be dissuaded from writing about a topic merely because it's common, noting that "topics are bound to repeat, no matter how hard we try to avoid it."

Above all, she urges honesty.

"If your experience within the context of the pandemic has been truly unique, then write about that experience, and the standing out will take care of itself," Pippen says. "If your experience has been generally the same as most other students in your context, then trying to find a unique angle can easily cross the line into exploiting a tragedy, or at least appearing as though you have."

But focusing entirely on the pandemic can limit a student to a single story and narrow who they are in an application, Sawyer says. "There are so many wonderful possibilities for what you can say about yourself outside of your experience within the pandemic."

He notes that passions, strengths, career interests and personal identity are among the multitude of essay topic options available to applicants and encourages them to probe their values to help determine the topic that matters most to them – and write about it.

That doesn't mean the pandemic experience has to be ignored if applicants feel the need to write about it.

Writing About Coronavirus in Main and Supplemental Essays

Students can choose to write a full-length college essay on the coronavirus or summarize their experience in a shorter form.

To help students explain how the pandemic affected them, The Common App has added an optional section to address this topic. Applicants have 250 words to describe their pandemic experience and the personal and academic impact of COVID-19.

"That's not a trick question, and there's no right or wrong answer," Alexander says. Colleges want to know, he adds, how students navigated the pandemic, how they prioritized their time, what responsibilities they took on and what they learned along the way.

If students can distill all of the above information into 250 words, there's likely no need to write about it in a full-length college essay, experts say. And applicants whose lives were not heavily altered by the pandemic may even choose to skip the optional COVID-19 question.

"This space is best used to discuss hardship and/or significant challenges that the student and/or the student's family experienced as a result of COVID-19 and how they have responded to those difficulties," Miller notes. Using the section to acknowledge a lack of impact, she adds, "could be perceived as trite and lacking insight, despite the good intentions of the applicant."

To guard against this lack of awareness, Sawyer encourages students to tap someone they trust to review their writing , whether it's the 250-word Common App response or the full-length essay.

Experts tend to agree that the short-form approach to this as an essay topic works better, but there are exceptions. And if a student does have a coronavirus story that he or she feels must be told, Alexander encourages the writer to be authentic in the essay.

"My advice for an essay about COVID-19 is the same as my advice about an essay for any topic – and that is, don't write what you think we want to read or hear," Alexander says. "Write what really changed you and that story that now is yours and yours alone to tell."

Sawyer urges students to ask themselves, "What's the sentence that only I can write?" He also encourages students to remember that the pandemic is only a chapter of their lives and not the whole book.

Miller, who cautions against writing a full-length essay on the coronavirus, says that if students choose to do so they should have a conversation with their high school counselor about whether that's the right move. And if students choose to proceed with COVID-19 as a topic, she says they need to be clear, detailed and insightful about what they learned and how they adapted along the way.

"Approaching the essay in this manner will provide important balance while demonstrating personal growth and vulnerability," Miller says.

Pippen encourages students to remember that they are in an unprecedented time for college admissions.

"It is important to keep in mind with all of these (admission) factors that no colleges have ever had to consider them this way in the selection process, if at all," Pippen says. "They have had very little time to calibrate their evaluations of different application components within their offices, let alone across institutions. This means that colleges will all be handling the admissions process a little bit differently, and their approaches may even evolve over the course of the admissions cycle."

Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.

10 Ways to Discover College Essay Ideas

Tags: students , colleges , college admissions , college applications , college search , Coronavirus

2024 Best Colleges

Search for your perfect fit with the U.S. News rankings of colleges and universities.

College Admissions: Get a Step Ahead!

Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S. News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy .

Ask an Alum: Making the Most Out of College

You May Also Like

10 destination west coast college towns.

Cole Claybourn May 16, 2024

Scholarships for Lesser-Known Sports

Sarah Wood May 15, 2024

Should Students Submit Test Scores?

Sarah Wood May 13, 2024

Poll: Antisemitism a Problem on Campus

Lauren Camera May 13, 2024

Federal vs. Private Parent Student Loans

Erika Giovanetti May 9, 2024

14 Colleges With Great Food Options

Sarah Wood May 8, 2024

Colleges With Religious Affiliations

Anayat Durrani May 8, 2024

Protests Threaten Campus Graduations

Aneeta Mathur-Ashton May 6, 2024

Protesting on Campus: What to Know

Sarah Wood May 6, 2024

Lawmakers Ramp Up Response to Unrest

Aneeta Mathur-Ashton May 3, 2024

CBSE Digital Education

#No.1 Educational Portal for Students & Teachers

Essay on Lockdown in English for Students and Children

This long essay on lockdown in English is suitable for students of classes 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, 11, 12, and also for competitive exam aspirants. All important information related to how to write an amazing essay about Lockdown.

Long Essay on Lockdown in English 800 Words

Lockdown essay in English – Lockdown is a term that exploded collectively around the world in the year 2020. With the widespread attack of an invisible virus, known as the Novel Coronavirus , the entire world was devastated by the Pandemic of this virus. It occurs during a wide variety of emergencies and it disrupts normal life.

Many words became popular after the arrival of Coronavirus, the term “lockdown” being one of them. A lockdown is a period of time when people have to stay home and are only allowed to travel in an emergency. During this period everything is closed except for some essential services like hospitals, grocery stores, medical stores, etc.

Introduction

Coronavirus has been considered the most contagious virus ever in the history of mankind. Its effects have become catastrophic within a short time. To prevent the spread of this Coronavirus in the country, our government has taken some drastic steps.

One of the most important measures implemented is a lockdown, where all businesses have been closed, all people have been confined to their homes and almost all professional, personal, and economic activities have come to a standstill.

The lockdown was announced and enforced on the 25 th of March, 2020. It has been extended, in phases, to continue till mid-June. The government has issued advisories to all citizens to practice social distancing and stay at home. The purpose of the lockdown is to prevent community transmission of this deadly virus so that the chain of transmission can be broken.

Each and every person faced many difficulties during this period but for the daily wagers, it was much more difficult. Work from home, online education , and online business were some of the options during this period, and the Indian government also helped the people a lot.

Online Education During Lockdown

For the first time, schools in India have moved to online classes. It is a struggle for the teacher as well as the students. School students, children, and their parents felt the impact to close schools and educational institutions.

The lockdown situation prompted people to learn and use digital technology and as a result, increased digital literacy.

The teaching material is easily shared among the students and the doubt questions are solved on Telegram, WhatsApp, E-mail, and various social media. Students need to learn digital skills for their own sake and improve the quality of education as well as changes in syllabus, textbooks, teacher training, and examination systems, but at the very least, the quality of online education must also improve needed.

Advantages of Lockdown

Due to the lockdown, on the one hand, while people have been forced to remain imprisoned in the house, on the other hand, many big benefits are also being seen. Some important benefits of essay on lockdown:-

• The rapidly spreading Coronavirus has been controlled by applying Lockdown.
• Due to the lockdown, the movement of vehicles has been reduced very much, factories have been closed, and the air of the cities has started to clear due to the rein in such activities.
• The impact of the lockdown is also being seen on global warming. In early April, scientists showed a hole of 1,000,000 square kilometers in the ozone layer above the North Pole. According to NASA, it has started filling these holes now.
• Earth’s vibration has been reduced by 30 to 50 percent due to less traffic, machines, and noise pollution.
• Due to Coronavirus, there has been a change in the cleanliness habits of the people. People are being more vigilant. Due to the lockdown, more time is also available for cleaning the house.
• People are learning to live with limited resources and insist on being self-sufficient (or Aatmnirbhar ) in the future so that they can produce themselves.
• During this lockdown period, we have got a lot of time for self-development and self-awareness.
• Most people in Lockdown are cooking at home and eating the same. Health will also be good due to good food.

Disadvantage of Lockdown

Some important disadvantages of the essay on Lockdown:-

• Many migrant laborers got trapped in different cities and they could not return to their homes due to which they had to face many difficulties.
• Many industries like agriculture, education, and entertainment are suffering. It has negatively impacted the world economy.
• Unemployment has increased rapidly due to the lockdown. Because of this many people have lost their jobs.
• All schools and colleges were closed due to the lockdown, due to which the students were not able to study well.

Lockdown 2021

The lockdown was imposed due to Coronavirus in March 2020 last year. The same situation is being seen again. Again in April 2021, Coronavirus is spreading rapidly due to which lockdown is being imposed in all the states one by one.

In view of this spreading Coronavirus, the CBSE board canceled the class 10 examination and postponed the class 12 examination.

Lockdown is something that affects people from all backgrounds and especially the daily wagers. Some of the main problems during a lockdown are employment, poverty, and starvation.

Overall, we should keep in mind that lockdowns are only imposed for our welfare, so it is always our duty to follow the rules of lockdown.

Related Article –

• Essay on New Education Policy 2020
• Essay on Article 370
• Essay on Farm Bill 2020
• Essay on Narendra Modi
• Essay on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
• Essay on Independence Day 2021

I hope you like this post “ Essay on Lockdown in English “. If you want to give any suggestions then comment below. Share this essay with your friends.

My Name is Mukesh Kumar. I am a Teacher, Blogger, Educational Content Writer, and Founder of CBSE Digital Education.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Essay on Lockdown

Students are often asked to write an essay on Lockdown in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Lockdown

What is a lockdown.

A lockdown is when people must stay where they are, usually due to an emergency. This can happen for different reasons, like a dangerous person in the area or a disease outbreak. During a lockdown, you can’t go to places like school or the park. It’s a rule to keep everyone safe.

Lockdown and Staying Home

In a lockdown, you stay home to avoid getting sick or spreading germs. Schools and shops may close, and you might not see your friends for a while. It’s important to listen to adults and stay inside.

Learning in Lockdown

Even in a lockdown, you can keep learning. Schools might do classes online, so you can study from home. You’ll use a computer or tablet to see your teacher and classmates. It’s different but still a way to learn.

Fun at Home

Lockdown doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. You can play games, read, or do crafts. It’s a chance to spend time with family and try new hobbies. Remember, it’s not forever, just for now.

250 Words Essay on Lockdown

A lockdown is when people must stay where they are, usually in their homes, to stay safe. This can happen when there is a big problem, like a dangerous virus spreading. During a lockdown, schools, offices, and shops can close, and people must work, study, and shop from home if they can.

Why Lockdowns Happen

Lockdowns are used to stop people from getting sick or hurt. When too many people get sick at once, hospitals can get too busy. By staying home, fewer people get sick at the same time, and hospitals can help everyone who needs it.

Life During Lockdown

Life changes a lot in a lockdown. You can’t visit friends or go to the park like before. Many turn to books, games, and the internet to learn and have fun. Families spend more time together, and people find new ways to connect, like video calls.

Challenges of Lockdown

Lockdowns can be hard. People might miss their friends or feel sad and worried. It’s not easy to stay inside for a long time. Some people also worry about their jobs and money if they can’t go to work.

After a Lockdown

When a lockdown ends, things slowly start to open again, like schools and stores. It’s important to be careful and listen to rules to keep everyone safe. Lockdown teaches us to be strong, care for each other, and that by working together, we can handle big challenges.

500 Words Essay on Lockdown

A lockdown is when people are told to stay where they are, usually in their homes, because of an emergency. This could be because of a health crisis, like a big outbreak of sickness, or for safety reasons, like when there’s a danger in the community. During a lockdown, schools, offices, and shops may close, and people have to follow special rules.

Reasons for a Lockdown

Lockdowns are used to keep people safe. For example, if a new sickness is spreading very quickly and making lots of people ill, a lockdown can help stop it from reaching more people. It’s like hitting the pause button on normal life so that the problem doesn’t get bigger.

Life During a Lockdown

When there’s a lockdown, daily life changes a lot. People can’t go to school or work like they usually do. Instead, they might have classes or meetings online. Being at home all the time can be hard. Families have to find new ways to stay busy and happy without leaving their houses. This can mean playing games, reading, or learning new hobbies.

The Good and the Bad

Lockdowns can be helpful because they keep people safe from danger. With fewer people moving around, it’s easier for doctors and nurses to take care of those who are sick. But lockdowns can also be tough. People might miss their friends or family members who don’t live with them. Some people might even feel sad or worried because of all the changes.

Following Rules

During a lockdown, it’s important to follow the rules set by leaders. This usually means staying home unless you need to get something important like food or medicine. Washing hands and keeping clean is also very important to stay healthy. People who work in hospitals or stores might still go to work to help others.

Learning from Lockdown

A lockdown can teach us many things. We learn to be patient and to take care of each other. We also learn how to solve problems in new ways, like studying from home or talking to friends and family online. It shows us that by working together and helping each other, we can get through tough times.

After the Lockdown

When a lockdown ends, things slowly start to go back to normal. Schools and shops open again, and people can go outside more. But it’s important to remember what was learned during the lockdown. We should keep washing our hands well and stay home if we feel sick, so we can keep ourselves and others safe.

Lockdowns are not easy, but they are sometimes necessary to protect everyone’s health and safety. By understanding what a lockdown is, why it happens, and how to deal with it, we can all do our part to help during these times. And when it’s over, we can appreciate being able to go out and see our friends and family even more.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Lithuania
• Essay on Do You Believe In Love At First Sight
• Essay on Doctor Career

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

MY COVID-19 Story: how young people overcome the covid-19 crisis

As part of UNESCO’s initiative “MY COVID-19 Story”,  young people have been invited to tell their stories and experiences: how they feel, how they act, what makes them feel worried and what future they envision, how the crisis has affected their lives, the challenges they face, new opportunities being explored, and their hopes for the future. This campaign was launched in April as part of UNESCO’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to give the floor to young people worldwide, share their views and amplify their voices. While the world grapples with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, many young people are taking on new roles, demonstrating leadership in their countries and communities, and sharing creative ideas and solutions. To this day, UNESCO has already received more than 150 written testimonials.

Self-isolation can be a difficult time… However, many young people worldwide decided to tackle this with productivity and positivity. Monty (17), a secondary school student from the United Kingdom, is developing new digital skills and has created his own mini radio station. Lockdown helped Öykü (25), a young filmmaker from Turkey, to concentrate on her creative projects. And for Joseph (30), a teacher from Nigeria, this time is a way to open up to lots of learning opportunities through webinars.

The crisis has changed not only the daily routine, but also perceptions of everyday life. For some young people rethinking the value of time and common moral principles appears to be key. 

“The biggest lesson for me is understanding … [the value of] time. During these last months I made more use of my time than in a past year.” - shares young tech entrepreneur Barbara (21), from Russia. Ravikumar (24), a civil engineer from India, believes  “This crisis makes us socialize more than ever. We are eating together, sharing our thoughts and playing together which happened rarely within my family before.”

Beyond the crisis

After massive upheavals in the lives of many people, the future for young people seems to be both a promising perspective to seize some new emerging opportunities, and a time filled with uncertainty about the crisis consequences and the future world order.

“It is giving us an opportunity to look into how we need to better support our vulnerable populations, in terms of food and educational resources”, says Anusha (19), from the United States of America. For Mahmoud (22), from Egypt, the COVID-19 crisis is a call to action: “After the pandemic, I will put a lot of efforts into helping people who have been affected by COVID-19. I am planning to improve their health by providing sports sessions, highlighting the importance of a healthy lifestyle.”

The COVID-19 pandemic brings uncertainty and instability to young people across the world, making them feel worried about this new reality they’re living in and presenting several new challenges every day, as they find themselves at the front line of the crisis. That is why, more than ever, we need to put the spotlight on young women and men and let their voice be heard! 

Be part of the campaign!

Join the  “MY COVID-19 Story” campaign! Tell us your story!

We will share it on  UNESCO’s social media channels  (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram), our  website,  and through our  networks  across the world. 

You can also share your testimonials by recording your own creative video! How? Sign up and create your video here:  https://zg8t9.app.goo.gl/Zw2i . 

• More information on the campaign

Related items

• SDG: SDG 3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
• SDG: SDG 4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
• SDG: SDG 10 - Reduce inequality within and among countries
• See more add

This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

More on this subject

Other recent stories

Life During Lockdown Essay in English for Students – 10 Lines, 100 & 1000 Words

• Entrance Exams
• November 6, 2023

Life During Lockdown Essay in English – The COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has disrupted our lives in ways we could have never imagined. Lockdowns, social distancing, and the sudden shift to remote learning have become the new normal for students around the world. Lockdowns were imposed in many parts of the world to curb the spread of the virus.

This essay explores the experiences of students during these challenging times and how their lives were affected by lockdowns. This article delves into the experiences, challenges, and resilience displayed by students during this trying time.

Also See – Mahatma Gandhi Essay in English in 500, 100 Words

About Lachit Borphukan in 10 Lines

Here, we have provided a brief overview of Life During Lockdown Essay – experience & Challenges in 10 lines.

• Life during lockdown has been a unique and challenging experience for students worldwide.
• Lockdowns forced a sudden shift to online education, with students facing technical issues and a need to adapt.
• Social isolation and restrictions on gatherings led to feelings of loneliness and separation from friends.
• Mental health concerns, such as stress and anxiety, became more prevalent among students.
• Some students discovered new hobbies and interests, from art and music to cooking and writing.
• Family time became more valuable as lockdowns brought loved ones closer together.
• Reflection and personal growth became a focus for some students during the lockdown.
• Online connections and virtual events offered ways to combat isolation and stay connected with peers.
• The lockdown experience highlighted the resilience and adaptability of students in the face of adversity.
• As we move beyond the pandemic, these experiences will be remembered as a time of transformation and change.

Write About Life During Lockdown Essay in 500 Words

Life During Lockdown: Adapting to a New Normal

Introduction

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 sent shockwaves through the world, disrupting almost every facet of daily life. One of the most significant changes brought about by the pandemic was the imposition of lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus. In this essay, we will explore the multifaceted experiences and challenges faced by individuals during these unprecedented times.

Online Education: A Digital Transformation

One of the most profound changes during lockdown was the abrupt shift from traditional classroom education to online learning. This transition had a profound impact on students of all ages. For students, it meant attending classes through a computer screen, submitting assignments electronically, and communicating with teachers and peers in virtual spaces. Online education offered flexibility but also presented various challenges, including technical issues, difficulties in maintaining focus in a home environment, and a lack of personal interaction with teachers and classmates.

Social Isolation: A Loneliness Epidemic

Lockdowns, with their strict restrictions on social gatherings and activities, resulted in a pervasive sense of social isolation. Students found themselves missing out on birthdays, parties, and extracurricular events. The inability to interact with friends in person took a toll on their mental health, leading to feelings of loneliness and separation from their social circles. Many students struggled to adapt to this new reality, where personal connections were limited to the digital realm.

Mental Health: Coping with Stress and Anxiety

The pandemic placed significant stress on students. Uncertainty, academic pressures, and the abrupt shift to online learning exacerbated pre-existing mental health issues and created new ones. Students grappled with stress and anxiety, trying to find effective coping mechanisms. Some turned to mindfulness and meditation to manage their mental well-being, while others maintained physical activity and exercise routines to alleviate stress. For many, seeking professional help became a crucial step in managing their mental health during lockdown.

Discovering New Interests: Hobbies as a Lifeline

Amid the challenges of lockdown, some students discovered a silver lining – the opportunity to explore new hobbies and interests. With extracurricular activities canceled and reduced homework, students found themselves with more free time on their hands. Some turned to creative outlets, such as art, music, writing, cooking, or other forms of self-expression. These new interests not only helped pass the time but also provided a sense of accomplishment and personal growth.

Quality Family Time: Strengthening Bonds

As lockdowns confined families to their homes, they had the chance to spend more quality time together. Parents and siblings became a source of support and companionship. Family dinners, movie nights, and long conversations became a cherished part of life during lockdown, fostering stronger connections and bonds among family members.

Reflection and Personal Growth: A Time for Transformation

For some students, lockdown provided an opportunity for self-reflection and personal growth. The slowed pace of life allowed them to set new goals, acquire new skills, and build resilience in the face of adversity. Many used this period of introspection to gain insights into their values, priorities, and aspirations.

Life during lockdown has been a journey filled with challenges and opportunities. The sudden shift to online education, the struggles of social isolation, and the impact on mental health have been significant. However, amidst these challenges, students have discovered new interests, strengthened family bonds, and embarked on personal journeys of growth and self-discovery. As the world moves forward beyond the pandemic, these experiences will serve as a testament to the adaptability and resilience of students in the face of unprecedented challenges. The lessons learned during this period will undoubtedly shape their lives and future endeavors.

Essay on Student Life in Lockdown

A Day in the Life of a Student in Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic, which swept the globe in 2020, has ushered in an era of unprecedented change. Lockdowns, social distancing, and remote learning have become the new reality for students worldwide. This article offers an in-depth exploration of a day in the life of a student during lockdown, comparing their current situation to pre-lockdown life and delving into the motivations that keep them going in these challenging times.

Pre-lockdown Life: A Time of Routine and Freedom

Morning Routine

Before the pandemic, students typically followed a well-defined morning routine. They would rise early, preparing themselves for the day ahead. Mornings often began with the pleasant aroma of breakfast and conversations with family members. Students would then embark on their daily commute to their respective educational institutions, be it school, college, or university. During this journey, they would interact with friends and classmates, share stories, and engage in light banter. The world was bustling with life, and students were an integral part of this vibrant ecosystem.

In-person Classes

In pre-lockdown life, students enjoyed the privilege of in-person learning. They would engage with their teachers face-to-face, have open discussions with peers, and participate in various extracurricular activities. The classrooms were alive with energy and enthusiasm as students actively participated in discussions, group projects, and hands-on learning experiences. Lunch breaks were a time for bonding with friends, and laughter filled the air as they shared meals and stories.

Afternoon and Evening

The afternoon and evening hours in pre-lockdown life were equally eventful. Students attended additional classes, worked on assignments, or participated in clubs and sports. The prospect of meeting friends after the day’s activities acted as a constant source of motivation. When the school day or college classes ended, students returned home in the late afternoon, bringing with them the excitement and experiences of the day. The evenings were a time for relaxation, socializing with friends, pursuing hobbies, and completing homework. Life had a sense of routine and normalcy.

Current Lockdown Life: A New Normal

In the wake of the pandemic, students have had to adapt to an entirely new routine. The early morning alarm still rings, but the circumstances have changed. Students now wake up at a different time, with more flexibility in their schedules. The day starts with a virtual breakfast, either with family members or alone, as the morning hustle and bustle of getting ready for a commute has been replaced by a more relaxed atmosphere. The absence of the daily commute is a significant change that many have come to appreciate.

Virtual Classes

Current lockdown life is defined by the transition to virtual education. Students have shifted from physical classrooms to virtual ones, attending lectures via video calls and web conferencing platforms. While this change offers flexibility in terms of location, it also presents various challenges. Staring at screens for prolonged periods can lead to screen fatigue, and maintaining focus within the distractions of a home environment can be difficult. The traditional classroom’s lively atmosphere and face-to-face interactions with teachers and peers have been replaced by a digital realm. While technology enables learning to continue, the loss of in-person interactions is palpable.

The afternoons and evenings for students in lockdown are a mix of academic responsibilities, self-study, and managing assignments. The energy and camaraderie of the physical campus are sorely missed. Students grapple with the absence of friends and the vibrancy of campus life. Evenings are largely spent indoors, with limited physical interaction with friends. This change has prompted students to turn to digital entertainment, such as movies, video games, and social media, to fill the void left by social interactions. The absence of physical engagement and extracurricular activities has left a vacuum in their daily lives.

Motivation in Lockdown: Finding Purpose

Dealing with Isolation

A significant challenge in the life of students during lockdown is dealing with isolation. The lack of social interaction, which was once an integral part of their daily routine, has left many feeling isolated and lonely. Students often turn to video calls and online chats to stay connected with friends and peers, seeking ways to bridge the gap created by physical distance. While virtual interactions are a lifeline, they can never fully replace the energy and spontaneity of in-person encounters.

Staying Motivated

Motivation during lockdown is an ongoing struggle. The lack of a physical classroom environment, the isolation from peers, and the blurred lines between home and school make it challenging for students to stay motivated. Self-discipline and time management become essential skills for maintaining productivity. Students often establish their own routines and set personal goals to ensure they stay on track academically. They use tools like to-do lists and time management apps to help them stay organized and focused on their studies.

To overcome the absence of physical extracurricular activities, students have turned to virtual alternatives. Online clubs, webinars, and workshops have become a source of motivation and engagement. These virtual activities provide students with a sense of community and an opportunity to pursue their interests and passions.

Coping with Uncertainty

The uncertainty surrounding the pandemic’s duration and its long-term effects on education and the job market has created anxiety and stress among students. Coping with this uncertainty is a significant aspect of their daily lives. Many students find inspiration in the resilience of the global community, witnessing how people come together in times of crisis. They draw strength from stories of individuals who have overcome adversity and have found innovative ways to adapt to the new normal.

For emotional support, students often turn to friends and family, engaging in open conversations about their fears and concerns. Many students have also sought professional counseling to help them navigate the emotional challenges posed by the pandemic.

A day in the life of a student during lockdown offers a stark contrast to the pre-lockdown routine. While pre-lockdown life was characterized by a structured daily schedule, in-person interactions, and a vibrant atmosphere, current lockdown life is marked by virtual classes, isolation, and a struggle for motivation. However, students have displayed remarkable adaptability and resilience in the face of these challenges. They have found ways to cope with isolation, stay motivated, and deal with the uncertainty brought about by the pandemic.

As the world continues to navigate the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic, the experiences of students during lockdown serve as a testament to their ability to adapt to challenging circumstances. Their determination and resilience are shaping their lives and will undoubtedly influence their future endeavors. While the journey has been filled with challenges, it has also offered opportunities for personal growth and a deeper understanding of the importance of community, adaptability, and perseverance in the face of adversity.

Related Posts

Shivaji jayanti essay in 500 words, 1000 words,10 lines, save water essay in 10 lines, 100 words, 500 words, saraswati puja essay in 10 lines, 100, 500 words, republic day essay in 150 words, 500 words & 10 lines, nursing essay in 10 lines, 100, 1000, 500 words, my favourite game kho kho essay in 10 lines, 100 & 500 words, my favorite leader essay in 10 lines, 100, 500, 1000 words, maulana abul kalam azad essay – 100, 500, 1000 words, 10 lines, lohri essay in 10 lines & 100, 500 words for students, green india essay in 10 lines, 100, 1000 words, leave a reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Name  *

Email  *

Add Comment  *

Post Comment

• Newsletters

Site search

• Israel-Hamas war
• Home Planet
• 2024 election
• Supreme Court
• All explainers
• Future Perfect

Filed under:

Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share this on Reddit
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

Will you support Vox today?

We believe that everyone deserves to understand the world that they live in. That kind of knowledge helps create better citizens, neighbors, friends, parents, and stewards of this planet. Producing deeply researched, explanatory journalism takes resources. You can support this mission by making a financial gift to Vox today. Will you join us?

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via

Next Up In Culture

Sign up for the newsletter today, explained.

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.

Thanks for signing up!

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

How screens actually affect your sleep

The video where Diddy attacks Cassie — and the allegations against him — explained 

Biden promised to defeat authoritarianism. Reality got in the way.

Why are whole-body deodorants suddenly everywhere?

The known unknowns about Ozempic, explained

Is it ever okay to film strangers in public?

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Review Article
• Published: 27 September 2021

Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap

• Sébastien Goudeau   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7293-0977 1 ,
• Camille Sanrey   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3158-1306 1 ,
• Arnaud Stanczak   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2596-1516 2 ,
• Antony Manstead   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7540-2096 3 &
• Céline Darnon   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2613-689X 2  

Nature Human Behaviour volume  5 ,  pages 1273–1281 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

115k Accesses

148 Citations

129 Altmetric

Metrics details

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced teachers and parents to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers developed online academic material while parents taught the exercises and lessons provided by teachers to their children at home. Considering that the use of digital tools in education has dramatically increased during this crisis, and it is set to continue, there is a pressing need to understand the impact of distance learning. Taking a multidisciplinary view, we argue that by making the learning process rely more than ever on families, rather than on teachers, and by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities. To address this burning issue, we propose an agenda for future research and outline recommendations to help parents, teachers and policymakers to limit the impact of the lockdown on social-class-based academic inequality.

Similar content being viewed by others

Large socio-economic, geographic and demographic disparities exist in exposure to school closures

Elementary school teachers’ perspectives about learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

Uncovering Covid-19, distance learning, and educational inequality in rural areas of Pakistan and China: a situational analysis method

The widespread effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in 2019–2020 have drastically increased health, social and economic inequalities 1 , 2 . For more than 900 million learners around the world, the pandemic led to the closure of schools and universities 3 . This exceptional situation forced teachers, parents and students to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers had to develop online academic materials that could be used at home to ensure educational continuity while ensuring the necessary physical distancing. Primary and secondary school students suddenly had to work with various kinds of support, which were usually provided online by their teachers. For college students, lockdown often entailed returning to their hometowns while staying connected with their teachers and classmates via video conferences, email and other digital tools. Despite the best efforts of educational institutions, parents and teachers to keep all children and students engaged in learning activities, ensuring educational continuity during school closure—something that is difficult for everyone—may pose unique material and psychological challenges for working-class families and students.

Not only did the pandemic lead to the closure of schools in many countries, often for several weeks, it also accelerated the digitalization of education and amplified the role of parental involvement in supporting the schoolwork of their children. Thus, beyond the specific circumstances of the COVID-19 lockdown, we believe that studying the effects of the pandemic on academic inequalities provides a way to more broadly examine the consequences of school closure and related effects (for example, digitalization of education) on social class inequalities. Indeed, bearing in mind that (1) the risk of further pandemics is higher than ever (that is, we are in a ‘pandemic era’ 4 , 5 ) and (2) beyond pandemics, the use of digital tools in education (and therefore the influence of parental involvement) has dramatically increased during this crisis, and is set to continue, there is a pressing need for an integrative and comprehensive model that examines the consequences of distance learning. Here, we propose such an integrative model that helps us to understand the extent to which the school closures associated with the pandemic amplify economic, digital and cultural divides that in turn affect the psychological functioning of parents, students and teachers in a way that amplifies academic inequalities. Bringing together research in social sciences, ranging from economics and sociology to social, cultural, cognitive and educational psychology, we argue that by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources rather than direct interactions with their teachers, and by making the learning process rely more than ever on families rather than teachers, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities.

First, we review research showing that social class is associated with unequal access to digital tools, unequal familiarity with digital skills and unequal uses of such tools for learning purposes 6 , 7 . We then review research documenting how unequal familiarity with school culture, knowledge and skills can also contribute to the accentuation of academic inequalities 8 , 9 . Next, we present the results of surveys conducted during the 2020 lockdown showing that the quality and quantity of pedagogical support received from schools varied according to the social class of families (for examples, see refs. 10 , 11 , 12 ). We then argue that these digital, cultural and structural divides represent barriers to the ability of parents to provide appropriate support for children during distance learning (Fig. 1 ). These divides also alter the levels of self-efficacy of parents and children, thereby affecting their engagement in learning activities 13 , 14 . In the final section, we review preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that distance learning widens the social class achievement gap and we propose an agenda for future research. In addition, we outline recommendations that should help parents, teachers and policymakers to use social science research to limit the impact of school closure and distance learning on the social class achievement gap.

Economic, structural, digital and cultural divides influence the psychological functioning of parents and students in a way that amplify inequalities.

The digital divide

Unequal access to digital resources.

Although the use of digital technologies is almost ubiquitous in developed nations, there is a digital divide such that some people are more likely than others to be numerically excluded 15 (Fig. 1 ). Social class is a strong predictor of digital disparities, including the quality of hardware, software and Internet access 16 , 17 , 18 . For example, in 2019, in France, around 1 in 5 working-class families did not have personal access to the Internet compared with less than 1 in 20 of the most privileged families 19 . Similarly, in 2020, in the United Kingdom, 20% of children who were eligible for free school meals did not have access to a computer at home compared with 7% of other children 20 . In 2021, in the United States, 41% of working-class families do not own a laptop or desktop computer and 43% do not have broadband compared with 8% and 7%, respectively, of upper/middle-class Americans 21 . A similar digital gap is also evident between lower-income and higher-income countries 22 .

Second, simply having access to a computer and an Internet connection does not ensure effective distance learning. For example, many of the educational resources sent by teachers need to be printed, thereby requiring access to printers. Moreover, distance learning is more difficult in households with only one shared computer compared with those where each family member has their own 23 . Furthermore, upper/middle-class families are more likely to be able to guarantee a suitable workspace for each child than their working-class counterparts 24 .

In the context of school closures, such disparities are likely to have important consequences for educational continuity. In line with this idea, a survey of approximately 4,000 parents in the United Kingdom confirmed that during lockdown, more than half of primary school children from the poorest families did not have access to their own study space and were less well equipped for distance learning than higher-income families 10 . Similarly, a survey of around 1,300 parents in the Netherlands found that during lockdown, children from working-class families had fewer computers at home and less room to study than upper/middle-class children 11 .

Data from non-Western countries highlight a more general digital divide, showing that developing countries have poorer access to digital equipment. For example, in India in 2018, only 10.7% of households possessed a digital device 25 , while in Pakistan in 2020, 31% of higher-education teachers did not have Internet access and 68.4% did not have a laptop 26 . In general, developing countries lack access to digital technologies 27 , 28 , and these difficulties of access are even greater in rural areas (for example, see ref. 29 ). Consequently, school closures have huge repercussions for the continuity of learning in these countries. For example, in India in 2018, only 11% of the rural and 40% of the urban population above 14 years old could use a computer and access the Internet 25 . Time spent on education during school closure decreased by 80% in Bangladesh 30 . A similar trend was observed in other countries 31 , with only 22% of children engaging in remote learning in Kenya 32 and 50% in Burkina Faso 33 . In Ghana, 26–32% of children spent no time at all on learning during the pandemic 34 . Beyond the overall digital divide, social class disparities are also evident in developing countries, with lower access to digital resources among households in which parental educational levels were low (versus households in which parental educational levels were high; for example, see ref. 35 for Nigeria and ref. 31 for Ecuador).

Unequal digital skills

In addition to unequal access to digital tools, there are also systematic variations in digital skills 36 , 37 (Fig. 1 ). Upper/middle-class families are more familiar with digital tools and resources and are therefore more likely to have the digital skills needed for distance learning 38 , 39 , 40 . These digital skills are particularly useful during school closures, both for students and for parents, for organizing, retrieving and correctly using the resources provided by the teachers (for example, sending or receiving documents by email, printing documents or using word processors).

Social class disparities in digital skills can be explained in part by the fact that children from upper/middle-class families have the opportunity to develop digital skills earlier than working-class families 41 . In member countries of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), only 23% of working-class children had started using a computer at the age of 6 years or earlier compared with 43% of upper/middle-class children 42 . Moreover, because working-class people tend to persist less than upper/middle-class people when confronted with digital difficulties 23 , the use of digital tools and resources for distance learning may interfere with the ability of parents to help children with their schoolwork.

Unequal use of digital tools

A third level of digital divide concerns variations in digital tool use 18 , 43 (Fig. 1 ). Upper/middle-class families are more likely to use digital resources for work and education 6 , 41 , 44 , whereas working-class families are more likely to use these resources for entertainment, such as electronic games or social media 6 , 45 . This divide is also observed among students, whereby working-class students tend to use digital technologies for leisure activities, whereas their upper/middle-class peers are more likely to use them for academic activities 46 and to consider that computers and the Internet provide an opportunity for education and training 23 . Furthermore, working-class families appear to regulate the digital practices of their children less 47 and are more likely to allow screens in the bedrooms of children and teenagers without setting limits on times or practices 48 .

In sum, inequalities in terms of digital resources, skills and use have strong implications for distance learning. This is because they make working-class students and parents particularly vulnerable when learning relies on extensive use of digital devices rather than on face-to-face interaction with teachers.

The cultural divide

Even if all three levels of digital divide were closed, upper/middle-class families would still be better prepared than working-class families to ensure educational continuity for their children. Upper/middle-class families are more familiar with the academic knowledge and skills that are expected and valued in educational settings, as well as with the independent, autonomous way of learning that is valued in the school culture and becomes even more important during school closure (Fig. 1 ).

Unequal familiarity with academic knowledge and skills

According to classical social reproduction theory 8 , 49 , school is not a neutral place in which all forms of language and knowledge are equally valued. Academic contexts expect and value culture-specific and taken-for-granted forms of knowledge, skills and ways of being, thinking and speaking that are more in tune with those developed through upper/middle-class socialization (that is, ‘cultural capital’ 8 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ). For instance, academic contexts value interest in the arts, museums and literature 54 , 55 , a type of interest that is more likely to develop through socialization in upper/middle-class families than in working-class socialization 54 , 56 . Indeed, upper/middle-class parents are more likely than working-class parents to engage in activities that develop this cultural capital. For example, they possess more books and cultural objects at home, read more stories to their children and visit museums and libraries more often (for examples, see refs. 51 , 54 , 55 ). Upper/middle-class children are also more involved in extra-curricular activities (for example, playing a musical instrument) than working-class children 55 , 56 , 57 .

Beyond this implicit familiarization with the school curriculum, upper/middle-class parents more often organize educational activities that are explicitly designed to develop academic skills of their children 57 , 58 , 59 . For example, they are more likely to monitor and re-explain lessons or use games and textbooks to develop and reinforce academic skills (for example, labelling numbers, letters or colours 57 , 60 ). Upper/middle-class parents also provide higher levels of support and spend more time helping children with homework than working-class parents (for examples, see refs. 61 , 62 ). Thus, even if all parents are committed to the academic success of their children, working-class parents have fewer chances to provide the help that children need to complete homework 63 , and homework is more beneficial for children from upper-middle class families than for children from working-class families 64 , 65 .

School closures amplify the impact of cultural inequalities

The trends described above have been observed in ‘normal’ times when schools are open. School closures, by making learning rely more strongly on practices implemented at home (rather than at school), are likely to amplify the impact of these disparities. Consistent with this idea, research has shown that the social class achievement gap usually greatly widens during school breaks—a phenomenon described as ‘summer learning loss’ or ‘summer setback’ 66 , 67 , 68 . During holidays, the learning by children tends to decline, and this is particularly pronounced in children from working-class families. Consequently, the social class achievement gap grows more rapidly during the summer months than it does in the rest of the year. This phenomenon is partly explained by the fact that during the break from school, social class disparities in investment in activities that are beneficial for academic achievement (for example, reading, travelling to a foreign country or museum visits) are more pronounced.

Therefore, when they are out of school, children from upper/middle-class backgrounds may continue to develop academic skills unlike their working-class counterparts, who may stagnate or even regress. Research also indicates that learning loss during school breaks tends to be cumulative 66 . Thus, repeated episodes of school closure are likely to have profound consequences for the social class achievement gap. Consistent with the idea that school closures could lead to similar processes as those identified during summer breaks, a recent survey indicated that during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom, children from upper/middle-class families spent more time on educational activities (5.8 h per day) than those from working-class families (4.5 h per day) 7 , 69 .

Unequal dispositions for autonomy and self-regulation

School closures have encouraged autonomous work among students. This ‘independent’ way of studying is compatible with the family socialization of upper/middle-class students, but does not match the interdependent norms more commonly associated with working-class contexts 9 . Upper/middle-class contexts tend to promote cultural norms of independence whereby individuals perceive themselves as autonomous actors, independent of other individuals and of the social context, able to pursue their own goals 70 . For example, upper/middle-class parents tend to invite children to express their interests, preferences and opinions during the various activities of everyday life 54 , 55 . Conversely, in working-class contexts characterized by low economic resources and where life is more uncertain, individuals tend to perceive themselves as interdependent, connected to others and members of social groups 53 , 70 , 71 . This interdependent self-construal fits less well with the independent culture of academic contexts. This cultural mismatch between interdependent self-construal common in working-class students and the independent norms of the educational institution has negative consequences for academic performance 9 .

Once again, the impact of these differences is likely to be amplified during school closures, when being able to work alone and autonomously is especially useful. The requirement to work alone is more likely to match the independent self-construal of upper/middle-class students than the interdependent self-construal of working-class students. In the case of working-class students, this mismatch is likely to increase their difficulties in working alone at home. Supporting our argument, recent research has shown that working-class students tend to underachieve in contexts where students work individually compared with contexts where students work with others 72 . Similarly, during school closures, high self-regulation skills (for example, setting goals, selecting appropriate learning strategies and maintaining motivation 73 ) are required to maintain study activities and are likely to be especially useful for using digital resources efficiently. Research has shown that students from working-class backgrounds typically develop their self-regulation skills to a lesser extent than those from upper/middle-class backgrounds 74 , 75 , 76 .

Interestingly, some authors have suggested that independent (versus interdependent) self-construal may also affect communication with teachers 77 . Indeed, in the context of distance learning, working-class families are less likely to respond to the communication of teachers because their ‘interdependent’ self leads them to respect hierarchies, and thus perceive teachers as an expert who ‘can be trusted to make the right decisions for learning’. Upper/middle class families, relying on ‘independent’ self-construal, are more inclined to seek individualized feedback, and therefore tend to participate to a greater extent in exchanges with teachers. Such cultural differences are important because they can also contribute to the difficulties encountered by working-class families.

The structural divide: unequal support from schools

The issues reviewed thus far all increase the vulnerability of children and students from underprivileged backgrounds when schools are closed. To offset these disadvantages, it might be expected that the school should increase its support by providing additional resources for working-class students. However, recent data suggest that differences in the material and human resources invested in providing educational support for children during periods of school closure were—paradoxically—in favour of upper/middle-class students (Fig. 1 ). In England, for example, upper/middle-class parents reported benefiting from online classes and video-conferencing with teachers more often than working-class parents 10 . Furthermore, active help from school (for example, online teaching, private tutoring or chats with teachers) occurred more frequently in the richest households (64% of the richest households declared having received help from school) than in the poorest households (47%). Another survey found that in the United Kingdom, upper/middle-class children were more likely to take online lessons every day (30%) than working-class students (16%) 12 . This substantial difference might be due, at least in part, to the fact that private schools are better equipped in terms of online platforms (60% of schools have at least one online platform) than state schools (37%, and 23% in the most deprived schools) and were more likely to organize daily online lessons. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, in schools with a high proportion of students eligible for free school meals, teachers were less inclined to broadcast an online lesson for their pupils 78 . Interestingly, 58% of teachers in the wealthiest areas reported having messaged their students or their students’ parents during lockdown compared with 47% in the most deprived schools. In addition, the probability of children receiving technical support from the school (for example, by providing pupils with laptops or other devices) is, surprisingly, higher in the most advantaged schools than in the most deprived 78 .

In addition to social class disparities, there has been less support from schools for African-American and Latinx students. During school closures in the United States, 40% of African-American students and 30% of Latinx students received no online teaching compared with 10% of white students 79 . Another source of inequality is that the probability of school closure was correlated with social class and race. In the United States, for example, school closures from September to December 2020 were more common in schools with a high proportion of racial/ethnic minority students, who experience homelessness and are eligible for free/discounted school meals 80 .

Similarly, access to educational resources and support was lower in poorer (compared with richer) countries 81 . In sub-Saharan Africa, during lockdown, 45% of children had no exposure at all to any type of remote learning. Of those who did, the medium was mostly radio, television or paper rather than digital. In African countries, at most 10% of children received some material through the Internet. In Latin America, 90% of children received some remote learning, but less than half of that was through the internet—the remainder being via radio and television 81 . In Ecuador, high-school students from the lowest wealth quartile had fewer remote-learning opportunities, such as Google class/Zoom, than students from the highest wealth quartile 31 .

Thus, the achievement gap and its accentuation during lockdown are due not only to the cultural and digital disadvantages of working-class families but also to unequal support from schools. This inequality in school support is not due to teachers being indifferent to or even supportive of social stratification. Rather, we believe that these effects are fundamentally structural. In many countries, schools located in upper/middle-class neighbourhoods have more money than those in the poorest neighbourhoods. Moreover, upper/middle-class parents invest more in the schools of their children than working-class parents (for example, see ref. 82 ), and schools have an interest in catering more for upper/middle-class families than for working-class families 83 . Additionally, the expectation of teachers may be lower for working-class children 84 . For example, they tend to estimate that working-class students invest less effort in learning than their upper/middle-class counterparts 85 . These differences in perception may have influenced the behaviour of teachers during school closure, such that teachers in privileged neighbourhoods provided more information to students because they expected more from them in term of effort and achievement. The fact that upper/middle-class parents are better able than working-class parents to comply with the expectations of teachers (for examples, see refs. 55 , 86 ) may have reinforced this phenomenon. These discrepancies echo data showing that working-class students tend to request less help in their schoolwork than upper/middle-class ones 87 , and they may even avoid asking for help because they believe that such requests could lead to reprimands 88 . During school closures, these students (and their families) may in consequence have been less likely to ask for help and resources. Jointly, these phenomena have resulted in upper/middle-class families receiving more support from schools during lockdown than their working-class counterparts.

Psychological effects of digital, cultural and structural divides

Despite being strongly influenced by social class, differences in academic achievement are often interpreted by parents, teachers and students as reflecting differences in ability 89 . As a result, upper/middle-class students are usually perceived—and perceive themselves—as smarter than working-class students, who are perceived—and perceive themselves—as less intelligent 90 , 91 , 92 or less able to succeed 93 . Working-class students also worry more about the fact that they might perform more poorly than upper/middle-class students 94 , 95 . These fears influence academic learning in important ways. In particular, they can consume cognitive resources when children and students work on academic tasks 96 , 97 . Self-efficacy also plays a key role in engaging in learning and perseverance in the face of difficulties 13 , 98 . In addition, working-class students are those for whom the fear of being outperformed by others is the most negatively related to academic performance 99 .

The fact that working-class children and students are less familiar with the tasks set by teachers, and less well equipped and supported, makes them more likely to experience feelings of incompetence (Fig. 1 ). Working-class parents are also more likely than their upper/middle-class counterparts to feel unable to help their children with schoolwork. Consistent with this, research has shown that both working-class students and parents have lower feelings of academic self-efficacy than their upper/middle-class counterparts 100 , 101 . These differences have been documented under ‘normal’ conditions but are likely to be exacerbated during distance learning. Recent surveys conducted during the school closures have confirmed that upper/middle-class families felt better able to support their children in distance learning than did working-class families 10 and that upper/middle-class parents helped their children more and felt more capable to do so 11 , 12 .

Pandemic disparity, future directions and recommendations

The research reviewed thus far suggests that children and their families are highly unequal with respect to digital access, skills and use. It also shows that upper/middle-class students are more likely to be supported in their homework (by their parents and teachers) than working-class students, and that upper/middle-class students and parents will probably feel better able than working-class ones to adapt to the context of distance learning. For all these reasons, we anticipate that as a result of school closures, the COVID-19 pandemic will substantially increase the social class achievement gap. Because school closures are a recent occurrence, it is too early to measure with precision their effects on the widening of the achievement gap. However, some recent data are consistent with this idea.

Evidence for a widening gap during the pandemic

Comparing academic achievement in 2020 with previous years provides an early indication of the effects of school closures during the pandemic. In France, for example, first and second graders take national evaluations at the beginning of the school year. Initial comparisons of the results for 2020 with those from previous years revealed that the gap between schools classified as ‘priority schools’ (those in low-income urban areas) and schools in higher-income neighbourhoods—a gap observed every year—was particularly pronounced in 2020 in both French and mathematics 102 .

Similarly, in the Netherlands, national assessments take place twice a year. In 2020, they took place both before and after school closures. A recent analysis compared progress during this period in 2020 in mathematics/arithmetic, spelling and reading comprehension for 7–11-year-old students within the same period in the three previous years 103 . Results indicated a general learning loss in 2020. More importantly, for the 8% of working-class children, the losses were 40% greater than they were for upper/middle-class children.

Similar results were observed in Belgium among students attending the final year of primary school. Compared with students from previous cohorts, students affected by school closures experienced a substantial decrease in their mathematics and language scores, with children from more disadvantaged backgrounds experiencing greater learning losses 104 . Likewise, oral reading assessments in more than 100 school districts in the United States showed that the development of this skill among children in second and third grade significantly slowed between Spring and Autumn 2020, but this slowdown was more pronounced in schools from lower-achieving districts 105 .

It is likely that school closures have also amplified racial disparities in learning and achievement. For example, in the United States, after the first lockdown, students of colour lost the equivalent of 3–5 months of learning, whereas white students were about 1–3 months behind. Moreover, in the Autumn, when some students started to return to classrooms, African-American and Latinx students were more likely to continue distance learning, despite being less likely to have access to the digital tools, Internet access and live contact with teachers 106 .

In some African countries (for example, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania and Uganda), the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in learning loss ranging from 6 months to more 1 year 107 , and this learning loss appears to be greater for working-class children (that is, those attending no-fee schools) than for upper/middle-class children 108 .

These findings show that school closures have exacerbated achievement gaps linked to social class and ethnicity. However, more research is needed to address the question of whether school closures differentially affect the learning of students from working- and upper/middle-class families.

Future directions

First, to assess the specific and unique impact of school closures on student learning, longitudinal research should compare student achievement at different times of the year, before, during and after school closures, as has been done to document the summer learning loss 66 , 109 . In the coming months, alternating periods of school closure and opening may occur, thereby presenting opportunities to do such research. This would also make it possible to examine whether the gap diminishes a few weeks after children return to in-school learning or whether, conversely, it increases with time because the foundations have not been sufficiently acquired to facilitate further learning 110 .

Second, the mechanisms underlying the increase in social class disparities during school closures should be examined. As discussed above, school closures result in situations for which students are unevenly prepared and supported. It would be appropriate to seek to quantify the contribution of each of the factors that might be responsible for accentuating the social class achievement gap. In particular, distinguishing between factors that are relatively ‘controllable’ (for example, resources made available to pupils) and those that are more difficult to control (for example, the self-efficacy of parents in supporting the schoolwork of their children) is essential to inform public policy and teaching practices.

Third, existing studies are based on general comparisons and very few provide insights into the actual practices that took place in families during school closure and how these practices affected the achievement gap. For example, research has documented that parents from working-class backgrounds are likely to find it more difficult to help their children to complete homework and to provide constructive feedback 63 , 111 , something that could in turn have a negative impact on the continuity of learning of their children. In addition, it seems reasonable to assume that during lockdown, parents from upper/middle-class backgrounds encouraged their children to engage in practices that, even if not explicitly requested by teachers, would be beneficial to learning (for example, creative activities or reading). Identifying the practices that best predict the maintenance or decline of educational achievement during school closures would help identify levers for intervention.

Finally, it would be interesting to investigate teaching practices during school closures. The lockdown in the spring of 2020 was sudden and unexpected. Within a few days, teachers had to find a way to compensate for the school closure, which led to highly variable practices. Some teachers posted schoolwork on platforms, others sent it by email, some set work on a weekly basis while others set it day by day. Some teachers also set up live sessions in large or small groups, providing remote meetings for questions and support. There have also been variations in the type of feedback given to students, notably through the monitoring and correcting of work. Future studies should examine in more detail what practices schools and teachers used to compensate for the school closures and their effects on widening, maintaining or even reducing the gap, as has been done for certain specific literacy programmes 112 as well as specific instruction topics (for example, ecology and evolution 113 ).

Practical recommendations

We are aware of the debate about whether social science research on COVID-19 is suitable for making policy decisions 114 , and we draw attention to the fact that some of our recommendations (Table 1 ) are based on evidence from experiments or interventions carried out pre-COVID while others are more speculative. In any case, we emphasize that these suggestions should be viewed with caution and be tested in future research. Some of our recommendations could be implemented in the event of new school closures, others only when schools re-open. We also acknowledge that while these recommendations are intended for parents and teachers, their implementation largely depends on the adoption of structural policies. Importantly, given all the issues discussed above, we emphasize the importance of prioritizing, wherever possible, in-person learning over remote learning 115 and where this is not possible, of implementing strong policies to support distance learning, especially for disadvantaged families.

Where face-to face teaching is not possible and teachers are responsible for implementing distance learning, it will be important to make them aware of the factors that can exacerbate inequalities during lockdown and to provide them with guidance about practices that would reduce these inequalities. Thus, there is an urgent need for interventions aimed at making teachers aware of the impact of the social class of children and families on the following factors: (1) access to, familiarity with and use of digital devices; (2) familiarity with academic knowledge and skills; and (3) preparedness to work autonomously. Increasing awareness of the material, cultural and psychological barriers that working-class children and families face during lockdown should increase the quality and quantity of the support provided by teachers and thereby positively affect the achievements of working-class students.

In addition to increasing the awareness of teachers of these barriers, teachers should be encouraged to adjust the way they communicate with working-class families due to differences in self-construal compared with upper/middle-class families 77 . For example, questions about family (rather than personal) well-being would be congruent with interdependent self-construals. This should contribute to better communication and help keep a better track of the progress of students during distance learning.

It is also necessary to help teachers to engage in practices that have a chance of reducing inequalities 53 , 116 . Particularly important is that teachers and schools ensure that homework can be done by all children, for example, by setting up organizations that would help children whose parents are not in a position to monitor or assist with the homework of their children. Options include homework help groups and tutoring by teachers after class. When schools are open, the growing tendency to set homework through digital media should be resisted as far as possible given the evidence we have reviewed above. Moreover, previous research has underscored the importance of homework feedback provided by teachers, which is positively related to the amount of homework completed and predictive of academic performance 117 . Where homework is web-based, it has also been shown that feedback on web-based homework enhances the learning of students 118 . It therefore seems reasonable to predict that the social class achievement gap will increase more slowly (or even remain constant or be reversed) in schools that establish individualized monitoring of students, by means of regular calls and feedback on homework, compared with schools where the support provided to pupils is more generic.

Given that learning during lockdown has increasingly taken place in family settings, we believe that interventions involving the family are also likely to be effective 119 , 120 , 121 . Simply providing families with suitable material equipment may be insufficient. Families should be given training in the efficient use of digital technology and pedagogical support. This would increase the self-efficacy of parents and students, with positive consequences for achievement. Ideally, such training would be delivered in person to avoid problems arising from the digital divide. Where this is not possible, individualized online tutoring should be provided. For example, studies conducted during the lockdown in Botswana and Italy have shown that individual online tutoring directly targeting either parents or students in middle school has a positive impact on the achievement of students, particularly for working-class students 122 , 123 .

Interventions targeting families should also address the psychological barriers faced by working-class families and children. Some interventions have already been designed and been shown to be effective in reducing the social class achievement gap, particularly in mathematics and language 124 , 125 , 126 . For example, research showed that an intervention designed to train low-income parents in how to support the mathematical development of their pre-kindergarten children (including classes and access to a library of kits to use at home) increased the quality of support provided by the parents, with a corresponding impact on the development of mathematical knowledge of their children. Such interventions should be particularly beneficial in the context of school closure.

Beyond its impact on academic performance and inequalities, the COVID-19 crisis has shaken the economies of countries around the world, casting millions of families around the world into poverty 127 , 128 , 129 . As noted earlier, there has been a marked increase in economic inequalities, bringing with it all the psychological and social problems that such inequalities create 130 , 131 , especially for people who live in scarcity 132 . The increase in educational inequalities is just one facet of the many difficulties that working-class families will encounter in the coming years, but it is one that could seriously limit the chances of their children escaping from poverty by reducing their opportunities for upward mobility. In this context, it should be a priority to concentrate resources on the most deprived students. A large proportion of the poorest households do not own a computer and do not have personal access to the Internet, which has important consequences for distance learning. During school closures, it is therefore imperative to provide such families with adequate equipment and Internet service, as was done in some countries in spring 2020. Even if the provision of such equipment is not in itself sufficient, it is a necessary condition for ensuring pedagogical continuity during lockdown.

Finally, after prolonged periods of school closure, many students may not have acquired the skills needed to pursue their education. A possible consequence would be an increase in the number of students for whom teachers recommend class repetitions. Class repetitions are contentious. On the one hand, class repetition more frequently affects working-class children and is not efficient in terms of learning improvement 133 . On the other hand, accepting lower standards of academic achievement or even suspending the practice of repeating a class could lead to pupils pursuing their education without mastering the key abilities needed at higher grades. This could create difficulties in subsequent years and, in this sense, be counterproductive. We therefore believe that the most appropriate way to limit the damage of the pandemic would be to help children catch up rather than allowing them to continue without mastering the necessary skills. As is being done in some countries, systematic remedial courses (for example, summer learning programmes) should be organized and financially supported following periods of school closure, with priority given to pupils from working-class families. Such interventions have genuine potential in that research has shown that participation in remedial summer programmes is effective in reducing learning loss during the summer break 134 , 135 , 136 . For example, in one study 137 , 438 students from high-poverty schools were offered a multiyear summer school programme that included various pedagogical and enrichment activities (for example, science investigation and music) and were compared with a ‘no-treatment’ control group. Students who participated in the summer programme progressed more than students in the control group. A meta-analysis 138 of 41 summer learning programmes (that is, classroom- and home-based summer interventions) involving children from kindergarten to grade 8 showed that these programmes had significantly larger benefits for children from working-class families. Although such measures are costly, the cost is small compared to the price of failing to fulfil the academic potential of many students simply because they were not born into upper/middle-class families.

The unprecedented nature of the current pandemic means that we lack strong data on what the school closure period is likely to produce in terms of learning deficits and the reproduction of social inequalities. However, the research discussed in this article suggests that there are good reasons to predict that this period of school closures will accelerate the reproduction of social inequalities in educational achievement.

By making school learning less dependent on teachers and more dependent on families and digital tools and resources, school closures are likely to greatly amplify social class inequalities. At a time when many countries are experiencing second, third or fourth waves of the pandemic, resulting in fresh periods of local or general lockdowns, systematic efforts to test these predictions are urgently needed along with steps to reduce the impact of school closures on the social class achievement gap.

Bambra, C., Riordan, R., Ford, J. & Matthews, F. The COVID-19 pandemic and health inequalities. J. Epidemiol. Commun. Health 74 , 964–968 (2020).

Google Scholar  

Johnson, P, Joyce, R & Platt, L. The IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities: A New Year’s Message (Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2021).

Education: from disruption to recovery. https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse (UNESCO, 2020).

Daszak, P. We are entering an era of pandemics—it will end only when we protect the rainforest. The Guardian (28 July 2020); https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/28/pandemic-era-rainforest-deforestation-exploitation-wildlife-disease

Dobson, A. P. et al. Ecology and economics for pandemic prevention. Science 369 , 379–381 (2020).

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Harris, C., Straker, L. & Pollock, C. A socioeconomic related ‘digital divide’ exists in how, not if, young people use computers. PLoS ONE 12 , e0175011 (2017).

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Zhang, M. Internet use that reproduces educational inequalities: evidence from big data. Comput. Educ. 86 , 212–223 (2015).

Article   Google Scholar  

Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, J. C. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (Sage, 1990).

Stephens, N. M., Fryberg, S. A., Markus, H. R., Johnson, C. S. & Covarrubias, R. Unseen disadvantage: how American universities’ focus on independence undermines the academic performance of first-generation college students. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 102 , 1178–1197 (2012).

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Andrew, A. et al. Inequalities in children’s experiences of home learning during the COVID-19 lockdown in England. Fisc. Stud. 41 , 653–683 (2020).

Bol, T. Inequality in homeschooling during the Corona crisis in the Netherlands. First results from the LISS Panel. Preprint at SocArXiv https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/hf32q (2020).

Cullinane, C. & Montacute, R. COVID-19 and Social Mobility. Impact Brief #1: School Shutdown (The Sutton Trust, 2020).

Bandura, A. Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychol. Rev. 84 , 191–215 (1977).

Prior, D. D., Mazanov, J., Meacheam, D., Heaslip, G. & Hanson, J. Attitude, digital literacy and self efficacy: low-on effects for online learning behavior. Internet High. Educ. 29 , 91–97 (2016).

Robinson, L. et al. Digital inequalities 2.0: legacy inequalities in the information age. First Monday https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i7.10842 (2020).

Cruz-Jesus, F., Vicente, M. R., Bacao, F. & Oliveira, T. The education-related digital divide: an analysis for the EU-28. Comput. Hum. Behav. 56 , 72–82 (2016).

Rice, R. E. & Haythornthwaite, C. In The Handbook of New Media (eds Lievrouw, L. A. & Livingstone S. M.), 92–113 (Sage, 2006).

Yates, S., Kirby, J. & Lockley, E. Digital media use: differences and inequalities in relation to class and age. Sociol. Res. Online 20 , 71–91 (2015).

Legleye, S. & Rolland, A. Une personne sur six n’utilise pas Internet, plus d’un usager sur trois manques de compétences numériques de base [One in six people do not use the Internet, more than one in three users lack basic digital skills] (INSEE Première, 2019).

Green, F. Schoolwork in lockdown: new evidence on the epidemic of educational poverty (LLAKES Centre, 2020); https://www.llakes.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/RP-67-Francis-Green-Research-Paper-combined-file.pdf

Vogels, E. Digital divide persists even as americans with lower incomes make gains in tech adoption (Pew Research Center, 2021); https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/

McBurnie, C., Adam, T. & Kaye, T. Is there learning continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic? A synthesis of the emerging evidence. J. Learn. Develop. http://dspace.col.org/handle/11599/3720 (2020).

Baillet, J., Croutte, P. & Prieur, V. Baromètre du numérique 2019 [Digital barometer 2019] (Sourcing Crédoc, 2019).

Giraud, F., Bertrand, J., Court, M. & Nicaise, S. In Enfances de Classes. De l’inégalité Parmi les Enfants (ed. Lahire, B.) 933–952 (Seuil, 2019).

Ahamed, S. & Siddiqui, Z. Disparity in access to quality education and the digital divide (Ideas for India, 2020); https://www.ideasforindia.in/topics/macroeconomics/disparity-in-access-to-quality-education-and-the-digital-divide.html

Soomro, K. A., Kale, U., Curtis, R., Akcaoglu, M. & Bernstein, M. Digital divide among higher education faculty. Int. J. Educ. Tech. High. Ed. 17 , 21 (2020).

Meng, Q. & Li, M. New economy and ICT development in China. Inf. Econ. Policy 14 , 275–295 (2002).

Chinn, M. D. & Fairlie, R. W. The determinants of the global digital divide: a cross-country analysis of computer and internet penetration. Oxf. Econ. Pap. 59 , 16–44 (2006).

Lembani, R., Gunter, A., Breines, M. & Dalu, M. T. B. The same course, different access: the digital divide between urban and rural distance education students in South Africa. J. Geogr. High. Educ. 44 , 70–84 (2020).

Asadullah, N., Bhattacharjee, A., Tasnim, M. & Mumtahena, F. COVID-19, schooling, and learning (BRAC Institute of Governance & Development, 2020); https://bigd.bracu.ac.bd/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/COVID-19-Schooling-and-Learning_June-25-2020.pdf

Asanov, I., Flores, F., McKenzie, D., Mensmann, M. & Schulte, M. Remote-learning, time-use, and mental health of Ecuadorian high-school students during the COVID-19 quarantine. World Dev. 138 , 105225 (2021).

Kihui, N. Kenya: 80% of students missing virtual learning amid school closures—study. AllAfrica (18 May 2020); https://allafrica.com/stories/202005180774.html

Debenedetti, L., Hirji, S., Chabi, M. O. & Swigart, T. Prioritizing evidence-based responses in Burkina Faso to mitigate the economic effects of COVID-19: lessons from RECOVR (Innovations for Poverty Action, 2020); https://www.poverty-action.org/blog/prioritizing-evidence-based-responses-burkina-faso-mitigate-economic-effects-covid-19-lessons

Bosumtwi-Sam, C. & Kabay, S. Using data and evidence to inform school reopening in Ghana (Innovations for Poverty Action, 2020); https://www.poverty-action.org/blog/using-data-and-evidence-inform-school-reopening-ghana

Azubuike, O. B., Adegboye, O. & Quadri, H. Who gets to learn in a pandemic? Exploring the digital divide in remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Int. J. Educ. Res. Open 2 , 100022 (2021).

Attewell, P. Comment: the first and second digital divides. Sociol. Educ. 74 , 252–259 (2001).

DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, W. R. & Robinson, J. P. Social implications of the Internet. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 27 , 307–336 (2001).

Hargittai, E. Digital na(t)ives? Variation in Internet skills and uses among members of the ‘Net Generation’. Sociol. Inq. 80 , 92–113 (2010).

Iivari, N., Sharma, S. & Ventä-Olkkonen, L. Digital transformation of everyday life—how COVID-19 pandemic transformed the basic education of the young generation and why information management research should care? Int. J. Inform. Manag. 55 , 102183 (2020).

Wei, L. & Hindman, D. B. Does the digital divide matter more? Comparing the effects of new media and old media use on the education-based knowledge gap. Mass Commun. Soc. 14 , 216–235 (2011).

Octobre, S. & Berthomier, N. L’enfance des loisirs [The childhood of leisure]. Cult. Études 6 , 1–12 (2011).

Education at a glance 2015: OECD indicators (OECD, 2015); https://doi.org/10.1787/eag-2015-en

North, S., Snyder, I. & Bulfin, S. Digital tastes: social class and young people’s technology use. Inform. Commun. Soc. 11 , 895–911 (2008).

Robinson, L. & Schulz, J. Net time negotiations within the family. Inform. Commun. Soc. 16 , 542–560 (2013).

Bonfadelli, H. The Internet and knowledge gaps: a theoretical and empirical investigation. Eur. J. Commun. 17 , 65–84 (2002).

Drabowicz, T. Social theory of Internet use: corroboration or rejection among the digital natives? Correspondence analysis of adolescents in two societies. Comput. Educ. 105 , 57–67 (2017).

Nikken, P. & Jansz, J. Developing scales to measure parental mediation of young children’s Internet use. Learn. Media Technol. 39 , 250–266 (2014).

Danic, I., Fontar, B., Grimault-Leprince, A., Le Mentec, M. & David, O. Les espaces de construction des inégalités éducatives [The areas of construction of educational inequalities] (Presses Univ. de Rennes, 2019).

Goudeau, S. Comment l'école reproduit-elle les inégalités? [How does school reproduce inequalities?] (Univ. Grenoble Alpes Editions/Presses Univ. de Grenoble, 2020).

Bernstein, B. Class, Codes, and Control (Routledge, 1975).

Gaddis, S. M. The influence of habitus in the relationship between cultural capital and academic achievement. Soc. Sci. Res. 42 , 1–13 (2013).

Lamont, M. & Lareau, A. Cultural capital: allusions, gaps and glissandos in recent theoretical developments. Sociol. Theory 6 , 153–168 (1988).

Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R. & Phillips, L. T. Social class culture cycles: how three gateway contexts shape selves and fuel inequality. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 65 , 611–634 (2014).

Lahire, B. Enfances de classe. De l’inégalité parmi les enfants [Social class childhood. Inequality among children] (Le Seuil, 2019).

Lareau, A. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life (Univ. of California Press, 2003).

Bourdieu, P. La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement [Distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste] (Éditions de Minuit, 1979).

Bradley, R. H., Corwyn, R. F., McAdoo, H. P. & Garcia Coll, C. The home environments of children in the United States part I: variations by age, ethnicity, and poverty status. Child Dev. 72 , 1844–1867 (2001).

Blevins‐Knabe, B. & Musun‐Miller, L. Number use at home by children and their parents and its relationship to early mathematical performance. Early Dev. Parent. 5 , 35–45 (1996).

LeFevre, J. A. et al. Pathays to mathematics: longitudinal predictors of performance. Child Dev. 81 , 1753–1767 (2010).

Lareau, A. Home Advantage. Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education (Falmer Press, 1989).

Guryan, J., Hurst, E. & Kearney, M. Parental education and parental time with children. J. Econ. Perspect. 22 , 23–46 (2008).

Hill, C. R. & Stafford, F. P. Allocation of time to preschool children and educational opportunity. J. Hum. Resour. 9 , 323–341 (1974).

Calarco, J. M. A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum (Princeton Univ. Press, 2020).

Daw, J. Parental income and the fruits of labor: variability in homework efficacy in secondary school. Res. Soc. Strat. Mobil. 30 , 246–264 (2012).

Rønning, M. Who benefits from homework assignments? Econ. Educ. Rev. 30 , 55–64 (2011).

Alexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R. & Olson, L. S. Lasting consequences of the summer learning gap. Am. Sociol. Rev. 72 , 167–180 (2007).

Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J. & Greathouse, S. The effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores: a narrative and meta-analytic review. Rev. Educ. Res. 66 , 227–268 (1996).

Stewart, H., Watson, N. & Campbell, M. The cost of school holidays for children from low income families. Childhood 25 , 516–529 (2018).

Pensiero, N., Kelly, A. & Bokhove, C. Learning inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic: how families cope with home-schooling (University of Southampton, 2020); https://doi.org/10.5258/SOTON/P0025

Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R. & Townsend, S. S. Choice as an act of meaning: the case of social class. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 93 , 814–830 (2007).

Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K. & Keltner, D. Social class, sense of control, and social explanation. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 97 , 992–1004 (2009).

Dittmann, A. G., Stephens, N. M. & Townsend, S. S. Achievement is not class-neutral: working together benefits pople from working-class contexts. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 119 , 517–539 (2020).

Zimmerman, B. J. Investigating self-regulation and motivation: historical background, methodological developments, and future prospects. Am. Educ. Res. J. 45 , 166–183 (2008).

Backer-Grøndahl, A., Nærde, A., Ulleberg, P. & Janson, H. Measuring effortful control using the children’s behavior questionnaire–very short form: modeling matters. J. Pers. Assess. 98 , 100–109 (2016).

Johnson, S. E., Richeson, J. A. & Finkel, E. J. Middle class and marginal? Socioeconomic status, stigma, and self-regulation at an elite university. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100 , 838–852 (2011).

Størksen, I., Ellingsen, I. T., Wanless, S. B. & McClelland, M. M. The influence of parental socioeconomic background and gender on self-regulation among 5-year-old children in Norway. Early Educ. Dev. 26 , 663–684 (2015).

Brady, L. et al. 7 ways for teachers to truly connect with parents. Education Week (31 December 2020); https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-7-ways-for-teachers-to-truly-connect-with-parents/2020/12

Montacute, R. Social mobility and Covid-19: implications of the Covid-19 crisis for educational inequality (Sutton Trust, 2020); https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/35323/2/COVID-19-and-Social-Mobility-1.pdf

Dorn, E., Hancock, B., Sarakatsannis, J. & Viruleg, E. COVID-19 and student learning in the United States: the hurt could last a lifetime (McKinsey & Company, 2020); https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-student-learning-in-the-united-states-the-hurt-could-last-a-lifetime

Parolin, Z. & Lee, E. K. Large socio-economic, geographic and demographic disparities exist in exposure to school closures. Nat. Hum. Behav. 5 , 522–528 (2021).

Saavedra, J. A silent and unequal education crisis. And the seeds for its solution (World Bank, 2021); https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/silent-and-unequal-education-crisis-and-seeds-its-solution

Murray, B., Domina, T., Renzulli, L. & Boylan, R. Civil society goes to school: parent–teacher associations and the equality of educational opportunity. Russell Sage Found. J. Soc. Sci. 5 , 41–63 (2019).

Calarco, J. M. Avoiding us versus them: how schools’ dependence on privileged ‘helicopter’ parents influences enforcement of rules. Am. Sociol. Rev. 85 , 223–246 (2020).

Rist, R. Student social class and teacher expectations: the self-fulfilling prophecy in ghetto education. Harv. Educ. Rev. 40 , 411–451 (1970).

Tobisch, A. & Dresel, M. Negatively or positively biased? Dependencies of teachers’ judgments and expectations based on students’ ethnic and social backgrounds. Soc. Psychol. Educ. 20 , 731–752 (2017).

Brantlinger, E. Dividing Classes: How the Middle-class Negotiates and Rationalizes School Advantage (Routledge, 2003).

Calarco, J. M. ‘I need help!’ Social class and children’s help-seeking in elementary school. Am. Sociol. Rev. 76 , 862–882 (2011).

Calarco, J. M. The inconsistent curriculum: cultural tool kits and student interpretations of ambiguous expectations. Soc. Psychol. Quart. 77 , 185–209 (2014).

Goudeau, S. & Cimpian, A. How do young children explain differences in the classroom? Implications for achievement, motivation, and educational equity. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 16 , 533–552 (2021).

Croizet, J. C., Goudeau, S., Marot, M. & Millet, M. How do educational contexts contribute to the social class achievement gap: documenting symbolic violence from a social psychological point of view. Curr. Opin. Psychol. 18 , 105–110 (2017).

Goudeau, S. & Croizet, J.-C. Hidden advantages and disadvantages of social class: how classroom settings reproduce social inequality by staging unfair comparison. Psychol. Sci. 28 , 162–170 (2017).

Kudrna, L., Furnham, A. & Swami, V. The influence of social class salience on self-assessed intelligence. Soc. Behav. Personal. 38 , 859–864 (2010).

Wiederkehr, V., Darnon, C., Chazal, S., Guimond, S. & Martinot, D. From social class to self-efficacy: internalization of low social status pupils’ school performance. Soc. Psychol. Educ. 18 , 769–784 (2015).

Jury, M., Smeding, A., Court, M. & Darnon, C. When first-generation students succeed at university: on the link between social class, academic performance, and performance-avoidance goals. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 41 , 25–36 (2015).

Jury, M., Quiamzade, A., Darnon, C. & Mugny, G. Higher and lower status individuals’ performance goals: the role of hierarchy stability. Motiv. Sci. 5 , 52–65 (2019).

Autin, F. & Croizet, J.-C. Improving working memory efficiency by reframing metacognitive interpretation of task difficulty. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 141 , 610–618 (2012).

Schmader, T., Johns, M. & Forbes, C. An integrated process model of stereotype threat effects on performance. Psychol. Rev. 115 , 336–356 (2008).

Usher, E. L. & Pajares, F. Self-efficacy for self-regulated learning: a validation study. Educ. Psychol. Meas. 68 , 443–463 (2008).

Bruno, A., Jury, M., Toczek-Capelle, M.-C. & Darnon, C. Are performance-avoidance goals always deleterious for academic achievement in college? The moderating role of social class. Soc. Psychol. Educ. 22 , 539–555 (2019).

Holloway, S. D. et al. Parenting self-efficacy and parental involvement: mediators or moderators between socioeconomic status and children’s academic competence in Japan and Korea? Res. Hum. Dev. 13 , 258–272 (2016).

Tazouti, Y. & Jarlégan, A. The mediating effects of parental self-efficacy and parental involvement on the link between family socioeconomic status and children’s academic achievement. J. Fam. Stud. 25 , 250–266 (2019).

Andreu, S. et al. Évaluations 2020, repères CP, CE1: premiers résultats [2020 assessments, first and second grades benchmarks: first results] (Ministère de l’Éducation nationale, de la Jeunesse et des Sports, 2020); https://www.education.gouv.fr/evaluations-2020-reperes-cp-ce1-premiers-resultats-307122

Engzell, P., Frey, A. & Verhagen, M. D. Learning loss due to school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118 , e2022376118 (2021).

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Maldonado, J. E. & De Witte, K. The effect of school closures on standardized student test outcomes (KU Leuven—Faculty of Economics and Business, 2020); https://limo.libis.be/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=LIRIAS3189074&context=L&vid=Lirias&search_scope=Lirias&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US

Domingue, B., Hough, H. J., Lang, D. & Yeatman, J. Changing patterns of growth in oral reading fluency during the COVID-19 pandemic (PACE, 2021); https://edpolicyinca.org/publications/changing-patterns-growth-oral-reading-fluency-during-covid-19-pandemic

Dorn, E., Hancock, B., Sarakatsannis, J. & Viruleg, E. COVID-19 and learning loss—disparities grow and students need help (McKinsey & Company, 2020); https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-learning-loss-disparities-grow-and-students-need-help

Angrist, N. et al. Building back better to avert a learning catastrophe: estimating learning loss from COVID-19 school shutdowns in Africa and facilitating short-term and long-term learning recovery. Int. J. Educ. Dev. 84 , 102397 (2021).

Reddy, V., Soudien, C. & Winnaar, L. Disrupted learning during COVID-19: the impact of school closures on education outcomes in South Africa (The Conversation, 2020); https://theconversation.com/impact-of-school-closures-on-education-outcomes-in-south-africa-136889

Entwisle, D. R. & Alexander, K. L. Summer setback: race, poverty, school composition, and mathematics achievement in the first two years of school. Am. Sociol. Rev. 57 , 72–84 (1992).

Kieffer, M. J. Catching up or falling behind? Initial English proficiency, concentrated poverty, and the reading growth of language minority learners in the United States. J. Educ. Psychol. 100 , 851–868 (2008).

Calarco, J. M., Horn, I. & Chen, G. A. ‘You need to be more responsible’: how math homework operates as a status-reinforcing process in school. Preprint at SocArXiv https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/xf96q (2020).

Kaiper-Marquez, A. et al. On the fly: adapting quickly to emergency remote instruction in a family literacy program. Int. Rev. Educ. 66 , 1–23 (2020).

Barton, D. C. Impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on field instruction and remote teaching alternatives: results from a survey of instructors. Ecol. Evol. 10 , 12499–12507 (2020).

Article   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

IJzerman, H. et al. Use caution when applying behavioural science to policy. Nat. Hum. Behav. 4 , 1092–1094 (2020).

Taylor, J. & Mallery, J. In person and online learning go together (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, 2020); https://siepr.stanford.edu/research/publications/person-and-online-learning-go-together

Dietrichson, J., Bøg, M., Filges, T. & Klint Jørgensen, A. M. Academic interventions for elementary and middle school students with low socioeconomic status: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Rev. Educ. Res. 87 , 243–282 (2017).

Núñez, J. C. et al. Teachers’ feedback on homework, homework-related behaviors, and academic achievement. J. Educ. Res. 108 , 204–216 (2015).

Singh, R. et al. In Artificial Intelligence in Education (eds Biswas, G.et al.) 328–336 (Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011).

Harackiewicz, J. M., Rozek, C. S., Hulleman, C. S. & Hyde, J. S. Helping parents to motivate adolescents in mathematics and science: an experimental test of a utility-value intervention. Psychol. Sci. 23 , 899–906 (2012).

Jeynes, W. A meta-analysis of the efficacy of different types of parental involvement programs for urban students. Urban Educ. 47 , 706–742 (2012).

Mol, S. E., Bus, A. G., De Jong, M. T. & Smeets, D. J. Added value of dialogic parent–child book readings: a meta-analysis. Early Educ. Dev. 19 , 7–26 (2008).

Angrist, N., Bergman, P. & Matsheng, M. School’s out: experimental evidence on limiting learning loss using “low-tech” in a pandemic (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021); https://www.nber.org/papers/w28205

Carlana, M. & La Ferrara, E. Apart but connected: online tutoring and student outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic (Institute of Labor Economics, 2021); http://hdl.handle.net/10419/232846

Pagan, S. & Sénéchal, M. Involving parents in a summer book reading program to promote reading comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary in grade 3 and grade 5 children. Can. J. Educ. 37 , 1–31 (2014).

Sénéchal, M. & LeFevre, J. A. Parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skill: a five‐year longitudinal study. Child Dev. 73 , 445–460 (2002).

Starkey, P. & Klein, A. Fostering parental support for children’s mathematical development: an intervention with Head Start families. Early Educ. Dev. 11 , 659–680 (2000).

Buheji, M. et al. The extent of Covid-19 pandemic socio-economic impact on global poverty: a global integrative multidisciplinary review. Am. J. Econ. 10 , 213–224 (2020).

The world economy on a tightrope (OECD, 2020); http://www.oecd.org/economic-outlook/june-2020/

Martin, A., Markhvida, M., Hallegatte, S. & Walsh, B. Socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 on household consumption and poverty. Econ. Disasters Clim. Change 4 , 453–479 (2020).

Jetten, J., Mols, F. & Selvanathan, H. P. How economic inequality fuels the rise and persistence of the Yellow Vest movement. Int. Rev. Soc. Psychol. 33 , 2 (2020).

Wilkinson, R. G. & Pickett, K. E. Income inequality and social dysfunction. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 35 , 493–511 (2009).

Sommet, N., Morselli, D. & Spini, D. Income inequality affects the psychological health of only the people facing scarcity. Psychol. Sci. 29 , 1911–1921 (2018).

Hattie, J. Visible Learning: A Synthesis of over 800 Meta-analyses Relating to Achievement (Routledge, 2008).

Cooper, H., Charlton, K., Valentine, J. C., Muhlenbruck, L. & Borman, G. D. Making the most of summer school: a meta-analytic and narrative review. Monogr. Soc. Res. Child 65 , 1–127 (2000).

Heyns, B. Schooling and cognitive development: is there a season for learning? Child Dev. 58 , 1151–1160 (1987).

McCombs, J. S., Augustine, C. H. & Schwartz, H. L. Making Summer Count: How Summer Programs can Boost Children’s Learning (Rand Education, 2011).

Borman, G. D. & Dowling, N. M. Longitudinal achievement effects of multiyear summer school: evidence from the teach Baltimore randomized field trial. Educ. Eval. Policy 28 , 25–48 (2006).

Kim, J. S. & Quinn, D. M. The effects of summer reading on low-income children’s literacy achievement from kindergarten to grade 8: a meta-analysis of classroom and home interventions. Rev. Educ. Res. 83 , 386–431 (2013).

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank G. Reis for editing the figure. The writing of this manuscript was supported by grant ANR-19-CE28-0007–PRESCHOOL from the French National Research Agency (S.G.).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Université de Poitiers, CNRS, CeRCA, Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition et l’Apprentissage, Poitiers, France

Sébastien Goudeau & Camille Sanrey

Université Clermont Auvergne, CNRS, LAPSCO, Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive, Clermont-Ferrand, France

Arnaud Stanczak & Céline Darnon

School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

Antony Manstead

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sébastien Goudeau .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Human Behaviour thanks Daniele Checchi and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Goudeau, S., Sanrey, C., Stanczak, A. et al. Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap. Nat Hum Behav 5 , 1273–1281 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01212-7

Download citation

Received : 15 March 2021

Accepted : 06 September 2021

Published : 27 September 2021

Issue Date : October 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01212-7

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

This article is cited by

Socioeconomic inequalities in psychosocial well-being among adolescents under the covid-19 pandemic: a cross-regional comparative analysis in hong kong, mainland china, and the netherlands.

• Gary Ka-Ki Chung
• Xiaoting Liu
• Roger Yat-Nork Chung

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (2024)

Digital gender gaps in Students’ knowledge, attitudes and skills: an integrative data analysis across 32 Countries

• Diego G. Campos
• Ronny Scherer

Education and Information Technologies (2024)

Microlearning as a Concept to Optimize Integrated Services for Racially/Ethnically Diverse Families of Autistic Children

• Zhiwen Xiao
• Sandra Vanegas

Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities (2024)

The ethicality of the COVID-19 response in children and adolescents

• Fiona McNicholas

Irish Journal of Medical Science (1971 -) (2024)

Health-related quality of life of young refugees in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic: comparisons to non-refugees and pre-pandemic times

• Johanna Braig
• Pia Schmees
• Heike Eschenbeck

Current Psychology (2024)

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Int J Environ Res Public Health

“My Life during the Lockdown”: Emotional Experiences of European Adolescents during the COVID-19 Crisis

Alberto forte.

1 European Network for Psychodynamic Psychiatry, 00154 Rome, Italy; [email protected] (C.I.); [email protected] (P.V.); [email protected] (D.L.); [email protected] (C.B.); [email protected] (I.N.-G.)

2 Department of Psychiatry and Substance Abuse, ASL Roma 5, 00019 Rome, Italy

Massimiliano Orri

3 McGill Group for Suicide Studies, Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada; [email protected]

4 Bordeaux Population Health Research Centre, Inserm U1219, Université de Bordeaux, 30072 Bordeaux, France

Martina Brandizzi

5 Department of Psychiatry, ASL Roma 1, 00193 Rome, Italy; [email protected]

Cecilia Iannaco

Paola venturini, daniela liberato, claudia battaglia.

6 Policlinico Umberto I, 00185 Rome, Italy; [email protected]

Isabel Nöthen-Garunja

Maria vulcan.

7 Timișoara 2021—European Capital of Culture Association, 300057 Timișoara, Romania; [email protected]

Asja Brusìc

8 Rijeka 2020—European Capital of Culture, Croatian Cultural Centre, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia; rh.akejir-dkh@ajsA

Lauro Quadrana

9 Department of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Section of Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatry, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy

10 Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University, 00185 Rome, Italy; moc.liamg@39xocillo (O.C.); moc.liamg@29irbbafaras (S.F.)

Sara Fabbri

Elena monducci.

11 Department of Human Neurosciences, Sapienza University, 00185 Rome, Italy; [email protected]

Associated Data

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

This study investigates, using an online self-report questionnaire, adolescents’ emotional reactions during the lockdown in a sample of 2105 secondary school students (aged 14–19) in Italy, Romania, and Croatia. We used a self-reported online questionnaire (answers on a 5-point scale or binary), composed of 73 questions investigating the opinions, feelings, and emotions of teenagers, along with sociodemographic information and measures of the exposure to lockdown. The survey was conducted online through a web platform in Italy (between 27 April and 15 June 2020), Romania, and Croatia (3 June and 2 July 2020). Students aged >14 years, living in a small flat, and not spending time outside were more likely to report anger, sadness, boredom/emptiness, and anxiety. Boys were significantly less likely than girls to report all measured emotional reactions. Those who lost someone from COVID-19 were more than twice as likely to experience anger compared to those who did not. Our findings may help identifying adolescents more likely to report negative emotional reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic and inform public health strategies for improving mental health among adolescents during/after the COVID-19 crisis.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 epidemic started in China in December 2019 and rapidly spread worldwide [ 1 ]. To respond to the public health crisis, many countries introduced severe lockdown measures such as school closure, social distancing, interruption of sports activities, and quarantine/isolation [ 1 ]. These restrictive measures may have serious psychological consequences in young individuals [ 2 ], especially among the more vulnerable.

Moreover, according to UNESCO, schools were closed in 188 countries between April and May 2019, leaving about 1.5 billion students out of the school system, representing 60% of the world student population [ 3 ]. School closures and decreased educational opportunities due to the pandemic might have a great impact on youths’ mental health [ 4 ], exposing young individuals to a higher risk of physical and/or sexual violence at home and, together with the economic damage caused by the crisis, may lead to increased mental health issues and suicide rates [ 5 ]. Furthermore, a recent systematic review of the literature showed a strong association between isolation/loneliness and depression in children and adolescents [ 6 ]. Additionally, schools play a fundamental role in the prevention and early recognition of mental disorders [ 7 ], especially for those with social and economic disadvantages [ 8 ], adding to the potential negative impact of COVID-19 on youth mental health.

Recent studies have shown increased levels of depressive, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms among adolescents in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic [ 9 ], particularly among girls, senior high school/college students, and those with economic disadvantages [ 6 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. However, only a few of them focused on the emotional reactions of adolescents during the COVID-19 outbreak [ 15 ] and on psychological distress [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Understanding the emotional reactions of secondary school students during the lockdown might help us to identify students at risk of psychological distress and inform preventive actions. In this study, we developed an online survey involving secondary school students from three European countries (Italy, Croatia, and Romania). The aim was to investigate the associations between several sociodemographic and lockdown-related factors with several emotional reactions (anger, anxiety, sadness, and boredom/emptiness).

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. study design.

An international cross-sectional study was performed in three European countries (Italy, Romania, and Croatia) based on a questionnaire developed by the Department of Human Neurosciences/Section for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Sapienza University (Rome, Italy) and distributed by The European Network for Psychodynamic Psychiatry (Netforpp Europa, Rome, Italy) a non-profit organization, during and immediately after the lockdown.

2.2. Recruitment Procedure

As described elsewhere [ 19 ] the survey was conducted online through a web platform (SurveyMonkey ® ) in Italy (between 27 April and 15 June 2020), Romania, and Croatia (between 3 June and 2 July 2020). Data collection was coordinated by Netforpp Europa in Italy and the associations Timisoara 2021 in Romania and Hrvatski Kulturi Dom in Croatia. The survey was conducted in a population of secondary school students as an extension of a previous project on mental health literacy, which had been conceived and implemented by Netforpp Europa, in collaboration with the Department of School Services of Rome (Italy), in several high schools in the cities of Rome and Florence in January 2020. Schools were recruited based on a previous EU funded project “ Mai Più Memory against Inhumanity: People with Mental Disorders under Totalitarian Regimes in Europe ”, which involved several schools in different European countries [ 20 ].

The Croatian coordinator collaborated with the Departments of Education and Schooling of the City of Rijeka and Primorsko-goranska County, which distributed the questionnaire among schools in Rijeka and its region. In order to obtain a nationwide coverage and adequate distribution of age groups, the coordinator in Romania collaborated with the “Europe Direct” network of information centers in Arad and Bucharest, the Timis Sibiu County School Inspectorates and several media partners. About half ( n = 508) of the total number of 1004 responses in Romania was collected in the “Elena Ghiba Birta” National College in Arad. The other half of responses came from schools in Timișoara, Sibiu, and Resifa.

Every school was contacted 2 weeks before the survey started and the study protocol was outlined in detail to head and class teachers. In Italy, approximately 7500 students were invited to participate (response rate 12.3%). Each participant of the questionnaire remained anonymous and respondents’ IP addresses could not be disclosed. Participation was entirely voluntary and without any compensation. Participants over the age of 18 years gave their voluntary informed consent to participate in the research before taking part in the study. For students under 18 years of age, participating schools entered the questionnaire in the school’s electronic parental platform, together with a cover letter in which all the information on the study protocol and the survey’s objectives were given. Schools included in the study uploaded the questionnaire to the school electronic parental platform along with a cover letter explaining in detail the study protocol. The letter contained the purpose of the study, the study procedure, and information about data protection and privacy. The school electronic parenting platform is an electronic classroom-board that can only be accessed by parents with a personal password. Only after parental acknowledgment and consent were their children able to complete the questionnaire.

2.3. Measures

“My life during lockdown” is a self-reported online questionnaire, which is composed of 73 questions investigating the opinions, feelings, and emotions of teenagers, along with sociodemographic information and measures of the exposure to lockdown. Types of questions differed within the survey, and were either on a 5-point Likert scale or binary questions. The questionnaire was completed anonymously, and the respondents’ IP address was hidden. The questionnaire was developed in Italian and translated into the Romanian, Croatian, and English languages using a translation and back-translation procedure. Measured variables are listed in Table 1 . We classified municipalities into three degrees of urbanization, according to EUROSTAT [ 21 ]; metropolitan areas (cities/large urban areas), medium-size urban areas (towns and suburbs/small urban areas), and rural areas. Parents socioeconomic status (SES) were classified according their occupation into low (i.e., (unskilled manual, non-manual low, farmer, fisher, retired/social welfare, or non-workers) vs. non-low (i.e., non-manual high, employee, self-employed and skilled worker, skilled manual, professional/managerial, or technical/skilled) [ 22 ]. Housing characteristics considered were: size of the house/apartment (> or <60 m 2 ), possibility of spending time outside, and whether it was possible to have privacy in the apartment during the lockdown (binary questions). We also asked about COVID-19-related information (“Has somebody important to you contracted SARS-CoV2?” “Have you experienced the loss of a loved one because of SARS-CoV2?”). Moreover, we asked whether parents were still working during the lockdown (answers: yes, no but they kept their job, no and their have lost their job), and whether they were worrying for the economic situation (“Are you worried about economic problems during this period?”). We also included questions about: relationships (“Has your relationship with your parents/friends/partner changed during the lockdown?”, answered as no, yes negatively, yes positively); social media (“Has your use of social media increased during the lockdown?”, answered on a 5-point scale ranging from Not at all to A lot); the importance of family or professional support (“Do you think that being with your family helped you to overcome this period?”, “Have you ever thought it would help you to talk to a professional about your feelings?”); and the positive impact of the lockdown (“Did you discover new interests/hobbies or talents during this period?”, “Do you think that you have spent this period of time in a productive and creative way?”). Finally, students’ emotional reactions were assessed by asking students if they were experiencing feelings of anxiety, sadness, anger, and persistent boredom/emptiness during the lockdown period (binary questions).

Characteristics of the Sample.

All variables are described as n (%), except for the variables with an * that are described as mean (SD).

2.4. Data Analysis

The study variables were described using mean and standard deviation (for continuous variables) and count and percentage (for categorical variables). First, descriptive statistics were estimated in the whole sample and by country, and the comparison across countries was performed using t-tests and chi-square tests. Second, associations of sociodemographic and lockdown-related variables with the four measured emotional reactions were estimated using univariable logistic regressions. Third, the variables that were associated with the emotional reactions at p < 0.05 were entered in multivariable logistic regression models to estimate their independent associations with emotional reactions. All tests were 2-tailed and considered statistically significant at p < 0.05.

2.5. Ethical Issues

All subjects gave their written informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. Participation was voluntary and without compensation. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Moreover, the study followed the privacy recommendation released by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research (MIUR) ( https://www.miur.gov.it/privacy-tra-i-banchi-di-scuola (accessed on 15 July 2020)). The project received Institutional approval by the Municipality of Rome, Department of School and Education (institutional authorization number n.987 06/05/2019), and was considered in line with GDPR 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation).

3.1. Participants’ Characteristics

A detailed description of the participants’ characteristics is presented in Table 1 . Most of the participants were 14–16 years old (44.4%) or 16–18 years old (35.9%), and 68.7% were female. Of the respondents, 87.3% were from a densely populated area, and 86.7% reported living in an apartment of >60 m 2 . Regarding COVID-19-related variables, 6.7% indicated knowing people with COVID-19 (family members, relatives, and/or friends), while 1.5% reported knowing someone who had died from COVID-19. Several variables significantly differed among countries. Among sociodemographic variables, the degree of urbanization significantly differed among countries ( p < 0.001); adolescents living in rural areas were mainly from Croatia and Romania, and none were from Italy (26.6%, 5.8%, and 0%, respectively), while Italian respondents were mainly from a densely populated area (97.5%). Additionally, housing variables significantly differed among countries for both the house size and the time spent outside: Italian respondents were more likely to live in larger houses ( p < 0.001) and less likely to spend time outside ( p < 0.001). Moreover, the fear of getting infected with COVID-19 was significantly higher among Italian adolescents compared to Romanian and Croatians (50.5%, 46.8%, and 27.7%, respectively, p < 0.001).

3.2. Univariable Analyses

Boredom/emptiness was the most frequently reported emotional reaction ( n = 1504, 71.7%) followed by sadness ( n = 1062, 50.5%), anxiety ( n = 786, 37.3%), and anger ( n = 698, 33.2%). Italian adolescents were more likely to report boredom/emptiness, anxiety, and sadness ( p < 0.001), whereas no significant difference between countries emerged for anger. Among sociodemographic variables, we found that age was significantly associated with all outcomes; emotional reactions were more frequently reported by adolescents aged more than 16 years and 14–16 years, compared with those younger than 14 years ( Table 2 ). Boys were less likely than girls to report all measured emotional reactions (anger: OR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.52–0.79; sadness OR: 0.35; 95% CI: 0.28–0.42; boredom/emptiness: OR: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.46–0.68; and anxiety: OR: 0.42; 95% CI: 0.34–0.52). Similarly, adolescents living in rural areas were less likely to report all emotional reactions than those living in urban areas (anger: OR: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.31–0.83; sadness OR: 0.53; 95% CI: 0.34–0.83; boredom/emptiness: OR: 0.59; 95% CI: 0.37–0.94; and anxiety: OR: 0.28; 95% CI: 0.15–0.51).

Univariable Analysis. Logistic regression models estimating the association between each variable in column 1 and the outcomes in the last four columns (Anger, Sadness, Boredom/emptiness, and Anxiety). All analyses are adjusted for country. Boredom/emptiness has been categorized as follows: always, often = 1; never, rarely, sometimes = 0. Statistically significant variables are in bold.

Having a small house was significantly associated with anger (OR: 1.3; 95% CI: 1.00–1.69), while not spending time outside was significantly associated with anger, sadness, and boredom/emptiness (anger: OR: 1.4; 95% CI: 1.14–1.73; sadness OR: 1.27; 95% CI: 1.04–1.55; and boredom/emptiness: OR: 1.26; 95% CI: 1.03–1.54) ( Table 2 ). Interestingly, several lockdown-related and COVID-19-related variables were associated with emotional reactions, and thus included in the multivariable analysis ( Table 2 ).

3.3. Multivariable Analyses

Table 3 reports the results of the multivariable analyses including only variables that were significantly associated with the outcomes in the univariate analysis.

Multivariable Analysis. Logistic regression models estimating the independent association between all the variables in column 1 (associated at p < 0.05 in the univariable analyses) and the outcomes in the last four columns; all models are also adjusted for country. Statistically significant variables are in bold.

Sociodemographic variables. Among sociodemographic variables, we found that the likelihood of reporting anger (OR: 1.59; 95% CI: 1.19–2.11), sadness (OR: 1.67; 95% CI: 1.28–2.18), boredom/emptiness (OR: 1.41: 95% CI: 1.06–1.87), and anxiety (OR: 1.59: 95% CI: 1.18–2.13) were higher among adolescents aged 14–16 years and among those older than 16 years, compared to those aged <14 years, in line with the univariable analyses. Similarly, being a boy was still independently associated with a lower likelihood of reporting all emotional reactions ( Table 3 ). Living in a rural area was associated with a decreased likelihood of experiencing anxiety (OR: 0.41; 95% CI: 0.21–0.78), but the association with anger, boredom/emptiness, and sadness/depression were no longer significant in the multivariable analysis.

Housing. Adolescents reporting not spending time outside their home during the lockdown were significantly more likely to experience anger (OR: 1.33; 95% CI: 1.06–1.66) and sadness (OR: 1.3; 95% CI: 1.04–1.63).

COVID-19-related variables. We found that adolescents who reported that a loved person had died from COVID had a more than two times higher risk of reporting feelings of anger (OR: 2.74; 95% CI: 1.29–5.81) compared with an adolescent who did not. Interestingly, strongly trusting the government was found to be significantly protective against experiencing anger (OR: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.35–0.76), sadness (OR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.43–0.89), and boredom/emptiness (OR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.42–0.91).

Relationships with parents and peers. We found that those reporting a negative impact of the lockdown on their relationships with friends were at higher risk of experiencing all emotional difficulties (e.g., OR for anxiety: 1.7; 95% CI: 1.26–2.30). Additionally, adolescents reporting a negative impact on their relationships with parents were more likely to experience sadness (OR: 1.55; 95% CI: 1.10–2.20).

Social media. We found a significantly increased likelihood of experiencing all emotional reactions among adolescents who reported increased use of social media ( Table 3 ), especially boredom/emptiness (OR: 1.44; 95% CI: 1.32–1.57).

Support. We found that those who believed that family support was important during the lockdown were less likely to report both boredom/emptiness (OR: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.52–0.84) and anxiety (OR: 0.61; 95% CI: 0.48–0.78) compared to those who did not believe so. In contrast, those who considered external support as important were more likely to report all emotional difficulties except anger. Notably, those reporting to be in psychotherapy were more likely to report boredom/emptiness (OR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.08–2.74).

The positive impact of the lockdown. Adolescents who reported to spend time creatively were significantly less likely to experience anger (OR: 0.78; 95% CI: 0.64–0.96), sadness (OR: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.54–0.81), and boredom/emptiness (OR: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.41–0.63) than those who did not spend time creatively.

4. Discussion

The present study reports the findings from a survey on the emotional reactions of a large sample of European secondary school students during the COVID-19 crisis. We found that the likelihood of experiencing anger, sadness, boredom/emptiness, and anxiety was higher among oldest (>14 years) and female adolescents, and related to housing characteristics and time spent outside. This is partly consistent with other studies where the female gender was found to be related to higher levels of psychological distress [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Additionally, recent studies on Chinese adolescents showed that older girls (15–18 years) were more likely to present depressive/anxious symptoms [ 11 , 26 ]. This might be, in part, explained by the fact that girls are generally more prone to internalizing-spectrum symptoms [ 27 ], while boys might be more likely to show externalizing behaviors and underreport internalizing emotions [ 28 ]. This gender difference might inform school-based preventive, gender-targeted interventions; it might also suggest that the detection of internalizing emotional difficulties might be underestimated among boys, who are at higher risk of developmental difficulties and negative later mental health outcomes than girls [ 29 ], including a higher risk of suicide [ 30 , 31 ]. Notably, even if boys were often less likely to express emotional distress, this might be related to societal and cultural constraints resulting in underreporting of emotional difficulties [ 29 ]. This might also suggest a need for addressing healthy masculinities and gender equality in emotional expressions [ 32 ]

We also found several protective factors. Living in a rural area was protective against experiencing anxiety, while spending time creatively during the lockdown was significantly protective of experiencing anger, sadness, and boredom/emptiness. Consistently, living in an urban area was already found to be a risk factor for experiencing anxiety among college students [ 33 ]. Thus, societal disparities, such as housing characteristics, might exacerbate the adverse emotional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and have an impact on the emotional reactions of adolescents [ 34 ]. Our findings expand the knowledge on the protective effect of daily routine and positive reframing [ 35 ], which have been found to be protective factors against perceived stress and emotional difficulties [ 24 ]. This was also found in a previous Italian survey, which reported that reconstructing a sort of daily “agenda” during the lockdown helped the overall emotional balance of children [ 36 ].

Results from the present survey provide important insights into adolescents’ emotional reaction after losing someone from COVID-19; we found that young individuals who lost a loved one from COVID-19 were at twice the risk of experiencing anger compared to those who did not (OR: 2.74; 95% CI: 1.29–5.81). The feeling of anger was already found to be a common emotional reaction among adolescents during lockdown [ 24 ], but our study expands the knowledge by suggesting that it is important to address the feeling of anger among young people who have lost someone from COVID-19. Indeed, reacting with anger might suggest that COVID-19 related grief among adolescents is experienced with a sense of injustice, which is typical of conflict-related trauma [ 37 ]. Future research is necessary to better understand the complexity of grief reactions among adolescents who lost someone from COVID-19, as this may inform preventive and therapeutic interventions. A previous study also reported that anger was found as a traumatic reaction among the general population of the Czech Republic, and that this was related to mass media pessimism [ 38 ]. Thus, our findings also suggest that future research studies are needed to clarify the association between mass media reporting and adolescent emotional reactions.

Interestingly, we also found that increased use of social media was significantly associated with all negative emotional reactions investigated, consistently with previous studies [ 10 , 39 ]. However, the direction of this association is difficult to interpret, as adolescents experiencing emotional difficulties might use social media more frequently [ 40 ]. Further studies are needed, aimed at understanding the role of social media in identifying youth in need of help, who are more likely to report negative emotional reactions.

Our findings also highlight the importance of the relationship with peers; those reporting a negative impact of the lockdown on their relationship with peers were at higher risk of experiencing negative emotional reactions, particularly more anxiety. This finding is in line with previous evidence highlighting the important role of peer relationships in the development of anxiety among adolescents [ 41 , 42 ]. Moreover, this suggests the importance of establishing peer support networks, either facilitated by peers or by professional interventions [ 43 , 44 , 45 ].

Notably, our findings also showed that trusting government decision-making could be considered a protective factor against negative emotional reactions among young students; strongly trusting the government was found to be significantly protective against experiencing anger, sadness, and boredom/emptiness. Previous findings also suggested that improving knowledge and positive attitudes toward the crisis among young people might enhance their resilience and reduce the risk of the psychological burden of restrictive measures [ 26 ].

5. Limitations

The present findings should be interpreted in light of several limitations. First, the cross-sectional design; emotional difficulties were measured at the same assessment, during the lockdown, thus the directions of the associations described are uncertain. Moreover, students were not randomly selected, and this might limit the generalizability to the entire population. Furthermore, the overall mental health status of the respondents is not known prior to the pandemic, so self-selection to complete the survey and participate may be taken into account in interpreting the results. Finally, in the absence of pre-pandemic data, we cannot know if several of the reported associations (e.g., between social media and anxiety) are specifically related to the current COVID-19 crisis or are more general associations that we would have observed independently from the crisis.

6. Conclusions

The present survey demonstrated that the risk of experiencing anger, sadness, boredom/emptiness, and anxiety was higher among older adolescents, females, and adolescents living in a small flat, not spending time outside, and reporting increased use of social media. Losing a loved one from COVID-19 was specifically associated with anger among affected adolescents, suggesting a specific reaction to such a tragic event. Nonetheless, several protective factors were identified, such as spending time creatively during the lockdown and trusting the government’s decisions. The present findings might help to identify adolescents more likely to report negative emotional reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic and inform policymakers and future public health strategies on improving mental health among adolescents. Additionally, the present study might inform future research on school-based preventive interventions, suggesting that improving trust in public health policies, social connectedness, as well as improving knowledge and positive attitudes toward the health crisis, might enhance resilience and reduce the risk of psychological burden among school students.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Giuseppina Pica and the Department for School Politics of the City of Rome, Marco Gusman, Alessia Barbagli, Valentina Bianchini, Marijana Gasparovic, Mirela Groza, Hanny Karlic, Miljana Kukic, Christina Kulterer, Mirela Lăpugean, Caterina Medici M.D., Francesca Padrevecchi, Fabiana Piccinini, Cecilia Santi, Sandra Santomauro, Carla Severini, Laura Soave, Andrew Stephens, Ramona Daniela Varga, Melanie Vicevic, and Lorenzo Webster for their helpful contribution in translating and distributing the questionnaire. A special thanks to headteachers, teachers, and students who took part in the present survey.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.F., M.O., M.B. and E.M.; methodology, A.F., M.O., E.M., L.Q., S.F., O.C.; software, A.F., M.O., M.B. and P.V.; validation, A.F., M.O., M.B. and E.M.; formal analysis, A.F., M.O. and M.B.; investigation, all authors; resources, all authors; data curation, all authors; writing—Original draft preparation, A.F., M.O., M.B., P.V., C.I. and E.M.; writing—Review and editing, A.F., M.O., M.B. and E.M.; visualization, A.F., M.O., M.B., P.V., D.L. and E.M.; supervision, M.O.; and project administration, all authors. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The project received Institutional approval by the Municipality of Rome, Department of School and Education (institutional authorization number n.987 06/05/2019), and was considered in line with GDPR 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

Additional menu

Intellectual Gyani

10 Things I Learned During Lockdown Essay for Student

posted on January 17, 2022

In This paper we’ll discuss, skills and hobbies I learned in lockdown as a student, though this list could easily be much longer, we’ve boiled it down to the list of best 10 things I learned during lockdown . hope it will help you to write best essay on Things I Learned During lockdown .

The 2020 lockdown took a big turn on us. And not just affect, lockdown changed many people views on so many things and I am one of them . I used to study and read in books that a pandemic is spread every 100 years and the world goes down to lockdown due to the epidemic, like when Bird Flu and Influenza spread in Spain. The same happens to our world in 2019, when COVID-19 finds its way to us.

The world shut down, shops, cinemas, educational institutes, gyms, restaurants, I mean, everything just locked down due to COVID. We got stuck at home and that’s when the COVID started taking a toll on me.

I was devastated as to why I can’t go out and hang out with my friend. Like Every other person I was asking the same question, “When will things go back to normal?” But one day, some facts stuck me in the face, “Why not trying something new?”, “I am free, let’s try reading that novel I never got the time to read”, “Let’s improve my English spoken Skills” and so much more.

And from there I took the road to self-improvement. As a college student, I was always busy with work and homework of college and didn’t have time for myself and extracurricular activities. But then the lockdown started helping me in discovering myself and my newfound hobbies. It helped me stay healthy both physically and mentally.

Lockdown was very boring to me at first but eventually, I took a liking to it. I started doing things that I always wanted to do but didn’t because of my tight schedule of college life . Like I took a liking to read books both fictional and non-fiction. This new hobby of mine helped me in so many ways as it helped me with my subjects of college, it also helped me improve my spoken English. Reading books taught me about so many world histories, religion, trust, and problems of real life.

Page Contents

10 Things I learned During Lockdown

1. learned technology during lockdown.

Yes, it is right. The main thing I get used to and learned a lot was technology. Most of our classes were going online during COVID-19 Lockdown, it helped to learn new things about online classes platforms like Zoom , Google Meet , etc.

I learned how to use specific apps and it helped me a lot in my researching skills . The one thing I learned about some app or website, due to free time, I started spending my time searching for other things related to that app or website.

Also, I have become a pro in using Laptop and Computer because otherwise, I have nothing to do with it. I was English Major and never have anything to do with PCs.

| Read: about advantages and disadvantages of technology in education

2. I learned the Importance Of Family During Pandemic

I was very happy that I had got a lot of time to spend with my family. And this lockdown helped me in understanding the need as well as the importance of family . I learned how a family is so crucial part of our lives. I was watching blogs and interviews of those living alone and how they are getting anxious with time and sometimes panic too. Watching them I realized, how fulfilling my house is and how blessed I am to have a family .

3. Learned Managing and Organizing

The best thing I learned during lockdown is managing and organizing.

I used to be a messy person before lockdown. Like my things were always here and there scattered around the whole house. The COVID-19 lockdown gives me time to realize this mistake. I started organizing my things.

I allot each section of my cupboard for different things. I started taking care of my house and used to keep it all clean and prep.

I learn to manage in limited and fewer resources. As COVID-19 left many in financial instability, my family was also one of them. But we stick together and survives this bad time. I started changing my habits which were charging extra money to me and developed my interests in other things. Like instead of buying new novels or books to read, I started reading online and borrowed books from friends.

4. Cooking & Baking

I never got the time to cook before lockdown. But I always have an interest in baking. This lockdown helped me spend more time in Kitchen helping my mom . I learned baking and now I know how to make cookies, cakes, cupcakes, and other baking stuff.  I started taking interest in cooking and try making different types of dishes like Chinese, Italian, etc.

5 Participated in Online Classes effectively

Another thing that I have learned is how much the feeling of going to class in the real world compares to going to class in the online world is so different yet normal for me. For the first few days, it felt a bit weird during my second week during lockdown, I felt nerves coming into the idea of online learning . We all were fine with going into class in the real world, but the virtual world was a whole new experience for me because I am always the shy one . Thankfully I have managed to embrace the idea and managed to get on without any issues.

6. Improved English Speaking Skills During Lockdown

As an Asian native, my English-speaking skills were not that good. Like before lockdown, I could understand that what people are talking about, but I didn’t have enough confidence in me to speak in English too. During the Covid-19 lockdown, I highly worked on this habit. I started hearing podcasts and English shows as well as news.

I started speaking in English in online classes and even to my siblings. I worked hard in developing this skill. And now after lockdown, I am a pro in English speaking. I can fluently talk in English now and also, now I am also participating in English speeches and debates.

7. You can learn from anything or anyone

I had always hated the notion that only people with more experience or age are capable of teaching. Some of the most interesting things and skills that I have learned were from YouTube and people much younger than me, or people with little formal education. There are opportunities to learn from anyone , whether or not they have had a formal education.

8. I Learned Blogging 

This is the best thing I learned during the lockdown . I always have an interest in blog and article writing. But again, I was not free enough to give this full time. In a lockdown, I take free online courses and started blogging . And now I am also earning from this skill set.

|Read: about the Advantages and Disadvantages of Blogging for Students

9. Appreciate the people in your life

This goes without saying that the people in your life are not here forever . Whether by voluntary or involuntary action, everyone will leave. But we have to make the most of our time with the ones that we love the most .

Conclusion:

I am so happy that I didn’t waste my time lurking around the house and laying down on couches. I developed several skills set which, I know, will help me in my practical life now. COVID-19 brings disasters and bad times for all of us, I was also worried about the wellbeing of my family and studies. But at least, I didn’t lose my faith that a good time will come soon and started spending my time learning new things in that worst time.

And the best thing I learned during this lockdown was Blogging and English-Speaking skills . Because now, utilizing these skills, I am generating side money for myself. I will wrap up everything by saying that, in this lockdown, we got time for our loved ones, we got time to focus on ourselves, and, especially, we got time to develop into a better version of ourselves.

So above is the  top 10 things I learned in lockdown as student . I guess you’ve finished reading it.

Discover More Related Posts:

About Intellectual Gyani

IntellectualGyani .com is a blog that aims to bring you an unbiased source of the advantages and disadvantages of various debatable topics used in daily life, so that you will understand better and form a decisive opinion about the subject. We generally talk about Education, Language and Technology .

Reader Interactions

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Visit “IntellectualGyani.com” again to Learn & to Grow.

Our mission is to promote civility, critical thinking, awareness, and education by presenting t he pros and cons of arguments to debatable topics in an easy to read manner.

Please Start here!

• High contrast
• Representative
• Work for UNICEF
• Press centre

Search UNICEF

Things we learned to appreciate more during covid-19 lockdown, curfews helped tomislav’s family appreciate the value of living in an intergenerational household and spending quality time together.

• Available in:

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is of a scale most people alive today have never seen. Lockdowns and curfews to contain the spread of the virus impacted the way children learn, the way their families earn a living, and how safe they feel in their homes and communities. Despite the ongoing threat, countries around the world are starting to lift restrictions. As we question whether we will ever go back to what we once knew to be “normal”, its worth taken a step back to see how we can build on what we have learned to build back a better world for children.

As a journalist, UNICEF photographer Tomislav Georgiev was one of the rare professionals with a permit to go out during the curfews and capture images of the deserted streets of the capital. But he discovered that in times like this, the most valuable images can be found closer to home. He turned his lenses from the outside world to capture photos of his own family with a loving eye. In a household where four generations live together, Tomislav captured scenes of play, family celebrations, sharing, exploring and learning new skills.

“I realized that no matter how much time we think we have; at the end of the day, what I came to appreciate was that we simply don’t spend enough quality time with our families,” says Tomislav.

Days in lockdown were an opportunity for children to reinvent ways of play and learning,  exploring their immediate environment and making the most of what they had available. Building resilience in children is one way we help them to cope in difficult moments.

Curfews were also a time to help children learn responsibility and their role in contributing in   our own way to find a solution to collective problems. “The silent understanding of my children was simply astonishing. We stay home, no questions asked, no demands to go and play with friends. Their lives have completely changed, yet they seem to grasp the importance of their contribution better than most adults,” says Tomislav.

During curfews many learned about the importance of being creative with the scarce resources and limited physical space they had at home. Also, many came to appreciate that small acts of kindness and gratitude to other family members helps to boost emotional wellbeing.

Some even learned new skills but what matters most is learning to appreciate the emotional connections made between different generations.  Its these connections that help us to develop the emotional resilience’s we need to get through stressful times.

“It is true – this crisis has taken its toll on humanity. However, it also provided an opportunity for generations to unite and perhaps begun to shape our younger generations to think differently about their own individual roles and how we as individuals can all contribute in our own way to find a solution to collective problems,” says Tomislav.

UNICEF remains committed to its mission to provide essential support, protection and information as well as hope of a brighter day for every child. UNICEF stands united with one clear promise to the world: we will get through this together, for every child .

Related topics

More to explore.

Ministry of Health, USAID, UNICEF and WHO launch “Protected Together – Vaccines Work” Information and Vaccination Caravan

Children cannot afford prolonged disruptions to learning

COVID-19 vaccine caravan brings information and vaccines closer to citizens

Ministry of Health supported by WHO, UNICEF and USAID is organizing a caravan to bring COVID-19 information and vaccines closer to citizens

After the Lockdown: Learning From Students' Experiences

School lockdowns are traumatic. we must listen and validate students' feelings..

Posted October 18, 2022 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• What Is Trauma?
• Find a therapist to heal from trauma
• Every month, hundreds of schools are forced to go into "non-drill" lockdowns because of a credible threat of violence.
• Students experience "invisible wounds" after school lockdowns that need to be addressed when creating school safety plans.
• Students may experience panic attacks, soil themselves, cry uncontrollably, and/or disassociate during or after a lockdown.

Co-authored by Annalisa Enrile and Harley London.

Harley is 14 years old and in the 8th grade. This year, her school, like hundreds of schools in the United States, was forced into a lockdown because of a suspected shooter threat. Thankfully, the police and school officials found it to be a hoax. What was not false, however, was the experience of all the kids in the school for the 45 minutes they were in lockdown. This story that Harley and I are sharing is an important one, especially for kids who have this experience. But we would like to offer a trigger warning because the experience that is described is traumatic , disturbing, and violent. Please read with care for yourself.

Swatting Incidences on the Rise

The most recent research data is from 2018, during which at least 4.1 million students had to go through at least one non-drill lockdown. Of course, lockdowns are essential to keeping kids safe, but following an actual act of school violence, there has been a rise in what the FBI refers to as “swatting” incidences. Swatting is a term that is used to describe filing false reports or threats to cause chaos and provoke a law enforcement response.

Swatting incidences are dangerous because they are fake but the response from law enforcement and the community is real. There have been incidences in which people have been injured in the process. It also can erode emergency responses if it happens so frequently in a kind of “the boy who cried wolf” syndrome where the threat becomes habitual and perhaps makes responses less urgent. Whether it’s authentic or “swatting,” the reality is an emotional and psychological cost to students, teachers, and other school personnel.

Despite the rise in “swatting,” one of the things that the tragedy at Uvalde taught is that there cannot be hesitation to act, especially when children are literally caught in the crosshairs. All schools in the United States are required to have a safety plan in place. But the need for a strategic plan on paper does not always tell the whole story of what is experienced when it must be acted upon.

First-Hand Experience

I was taking a test in math class, so the room was completely silent. Suddenly, I heard sirens and then we heard the PA system turn on, but no one was saying anything, so, we thought the principal accidentally turned it on. After a few moments, the principal said in a shaky voice, “Teachers, please lock your doors and close the blinds; we are in a lockdown. I repeat, we are in a lockdown.” 1 minute later: Everyone quickly stopped the test. I looked at my friends, and we immediately got down. Everyone was panicking trying to grab their phones and hide under the desks. One of my classmates whispered, “Guys shut up and hide.” First, we got on the ground, then my teacher had us crawl to another classroom. I crawled into a corner, but unfortunately, I was by a window so I wanted to move but was frozen there. 10 minutes later: The PA system went off again. The principal said, “Teachers and students please remain calm and silent, we are still in lockdown.” At that point, the majority of us were freaking out. The girl in front of me was crying and hugging her friend. I didn’t know what to do, so I just started praying to calm me down. I didn’t know where my friends were. I only saw two of my friends from the other class across the room, lending their phone to other classmates. One of my classmates tapped me on my shoulder and then held my hand. 5 minutes later: The phone in one of the classrooms rang, and a bunch of my classmates were whispering and crying. I realized then that the elementary students were probably so scared. 30 minutes later: Suddenly the door opens. Everyone was scooting away and hiding. But we learned that it was one of the teachers getting water for a student who had passed out. 45 minutes later: The PA system went off again. The principal announced, “Teachers, you may go back to teaching again. We will contact parents to pick up the students.” The lights turned on and everyone was crying. I ran up to all my friends hugging them and crying. I felt relieved. I don’t normally cry but I just couldn’t stop crying.

Invisible Wounds

Harley’s story emphasizes the potential trauma that children feel when they experience a lockdown, even if there is no active violence. The fear and anxiety may last well beyond the “all clear” is given. Dr. Marleen Wong , leading expert on childhood trauma and one of the original developers of Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools and Psychological First Aid calls these “Invisible Wounds.” Just as Harley’s story demonstrated, the invisible wounds of school lockdowns are immediate, urgent, and often both physical and emotional.

A Washington Post yearlong focus on school violence found that children aged as young as 4 years have participated in lockdowns where they have had to do things like hide in darkened rooms or learn how to “play dead” or camouflage themselves for survival. It is not uncommon for children and youth to soil themselves, pass out, panic, or cry during or right after these experiences.

Trauma-Informed Practices

There are some key things to address the trauma children may have following a lockdown.

I told my mom I needed a couple of days off after the lockdown and she let me stay with my grandparents. I think parents should listen to their kids. We aren’t lying when we say we are scared or nervous. Not all my classmates were allowed to do that. The next day, there was another threat called in and another lockdown. I don’t know how I would feel if I had to go through it all over again so soon. A lot my friends were sending me pictures and videos because they now carried their phones with them. One of my friends told me how scary it was—almost worse than the day before.

Dr. Kennedy, a.k.a. " Millennial Parenting Whisperer ," works with parents to help them foster resiliency and empathy, reminding parents about the power of really listening . Harley’s mom said, “I have to trust that she knows what she is feeling and validate that information. I took a look at her workload (no big assignments due), we talked about how long was appropriate (two days) and what she would do while she took time off (spend time with her grandma, paint, and journal). I want her to feel safe coming to me with what she is experiencing, but, even more, I want her to be able to name what she is feeling and act on that.”

Dr. Steve Hydon, Director of Social Work in Schools at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work states, “Parents ought to embrace Dr. Bruce Perry's six R’s: Relational, Relevant, Rhythmic, Repetitive, Rewarding, Respectful. These six R’s are what Perry identified as core considerations for trauma-informed care when implementing therapeutic interventions and experiences.

School violence remains a reality that schools, communities, and families will have to continue to face. However, engaging in trauma-informed practices can help the healing process, especially when safety plans are developed and other strategic decisions are made. Most importantly, the voices of students themselves should be expressed, listened to, and included in how solutions are created. After all, they, along with their teachers, administrators, and school staff, are right at the epicenter.

Greco, V. (2021). The Casualties You Don’t See: The Omnipresent Trauma of School Shootings. Dress Rehearsals for Gun Violence: Confronting Trauma and Anxiety in America’s Schools, 1.

Osher, D., Mayer, M. J., Jagers, R. J., Kendziora, K., & Wood, L. (Eds.). (2019). Keeping Students Safe and Helping Them Thrive: A Collaborative Handbook on School Safety, Mental Health, and Wellness [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO.

Schildkraut, J., & Nickerson, A. B. (2022). Lockdown Drills: Connecting Research and Best Practices for School Administrators, Teachers, and Parents. MIT Press.

Annalisa Enrile, Ph.D. , is a Clinical Professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, turning classrooms into brave spaces to train the next generation of change-makers.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

Essay on Lockdown

‘Lockdown’ refers to the suspension of the usual privileges of citizens, regarding their movement and socializing. It is imposed by a competent authority to prevent any untoward incident. In India, a lockdown was imposed for many months by the government to contain the spread of novel coronavirus disease. Find here some well-described essays to know in detail about the lockdown.

Short and Long Essay on Lockdown in English

Following short and long essays on Lockdown in different word limits are given here that is useful for students of classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and class 12 in English in 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500 words. Also find short Lockdown essay 10 lines.

Lockdown Essay 10 Lines (100 – 150 Words)

1) Lockdown refers to the prevention of citizens from moving and socializing as usual.

2) Lockdown is imposed by the government in case of any emergency.

3) India has undergone a lockdown to control the widespread of the Corona virus.

4) The government of India imposed the first lockdown on 25 March 2020, Wednesday.

5) India observed continuous 150 days complete shutdown in the lockdown.

6) Except for the emergency services, everything was closed and restricted.

7) The lockdown was continued for a few months in four parts.

8) The lockdown helped in controlling the widespread coronavirus and massive deaths.

9) Lives and works of many people were affected by the lockdown.

10) Lockdown was not fruitful for the economy as India suffered negative GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Essay 1 (250 Words)

Introduction

Lockdown is an emergency protocol implemented by the government of India with an objective to contain the spread of a novel coronavirus epidemic. The government implemented a 21 days countrywide lockdown at the beginning which was continued for many months in 4 parts in the entire nation and further the state governments implemented it as per their states need. India was under lockdown for more than 150 days continuously.

Lockdown – The Only Remedy against Novel Coronavirus

Novel coronavirus disease is highly contagious and it spreads fast from person to person. No other disease before has been known to spread such a fast rate as the novel coronavirus. There is no option other than to treat the affected symptomatically; however, the final recovery depends largely on an individual’s stamina and immunity. From the perspective of this scenario, the lockdown seems to be the only practical and effective solution to prevent the spread of the disease.

Although we cannot imagine such scenario for more time our government courage to take such a bold step. It was implemented to keep safe from this deadly virus. Lockdown badly effected our economy and today it is in its fracture mode.

Success of Lockdown

Although we felt safe when the government took such a major but some experts remark lockdown as an unplanned action and it has directly affected the entire nation. Apart from India many other countries also adopted lockdown but they are strong enough to cope up with the economic damage caused due to lockdown.

It would not be wrong to say that the lockdown reduced the flow of this virus, but at the same time cases started to increase rapidly after it was unlocked in India. India became the second-highest infected country. So, in this term, we cannot say that lockdown was truly successful.

Even today schools, colleges, parks, public spaces, cinemas in India are closed. The lockdown can be still seen but the cases are decreasing comparatively. The vaccine has been developed and soon people will get rid of this deadly virus till than keep wearing your mask, wash your hand frequently, use sanitizer and follow social distancing.

Essay 2 (400 Words)

‘Lockdown’ as the name implies is a complete lockdown imposed on the usual movement of the general population of a place. A lockdown can be localized or applied over a wide area, depending on the purpose.

Lockdown in India

• First lockdown : It was 25th March 2020 when it was implemented for the first time, till the 14th of April. When the entire nation was completely shut except for some necessary grocery shops and health facilities.
• Second Lockdown : The second lockdown was announced from 15th April to 4th May with the same set of rules and regulations.
• Third Lockdown : It was implemented from the 4th of May to the 17th of May but in this phase of lockdown some special trains were run to help the daily wages workers. Some people stuck abroad were also bought back. This operation was named ‘Operation Samudrsetu’.
• Fourth Lockdown : It was implemented up to 31st of May and further different states extended as per the condition of their state. Districts were divided into three zones as per the COVID cases in the area. Red zone for most infected areas, Orange for few cases in the area whereas Green for areas with no infection.

Impacts of Lockdown

• On Novel Coronavirus Disease

This is the most significant and most desirable impact of the lockdown. The novel coronavirus is highly contagious, spreading fast from person to person. Lockdown makes social distancing effective; prohibiting human to human contact at the highest level possible. This social distancing helps a lot in containing the spread of the disease.

But at the same time, we cannot imagine continuing lockdown for a long time, because it has directly affected us in many ways.

• On The Economy

A countrywide lockdown isn’t good for the economy and is a setback for the economic growth and development of the nation. With transport suspended, railways and road transport agencies suffer losses to the tunes of crores. Small businesses and daily wage laborers are the most affected. Our GDP is going in negative decimals which is -9.6% this year and it is really a matter of fear because it will directly cause inflation.

• On Pollution Level

This is a significant positive impact of the lockdown. With all types of transport being suspended and also the people being forbidden from roaming unnecessarily, the air quality index improves drastically. The change was felt within a day or two of the lockdown.

• On Emergency Services

Lockdown was good for the emergency services and the personnel in a way that didn’t put additional stress on them. With no traffic and rush like usual days, their job becomes extremely easy and convenient.

Lockdown was very necessary for containing the coronavirus epidemic and preventing it from spreading to the community level. Despite its negative impacts; lockdown was very important. Even today although we have developed the vaccine there are many public places still closed. It is quite good in many ways.

Essay 3 (500 – 600 Words)

Lockdown is an emergency protocol imposed by the government that prohibits people from leaving their homes and venturing into public areas. In the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic spread, several governments across the globe have imposed lockdown in their respective jurisdiction, to prevent the disease from spreading further. The government of India also imposed a countrywide lockdown from midnight of 25th March and followed up to 4 months in every state and further different states followed as per the COVID cases in their states.

Why Is The Lockdown Necessary?

Ever since the coronavirus disease was first reported in China in November 2019 it affected millions of people globally. The disease is highly contagious and spreads at an unprecedented rate as never witnessed before.

The motive of a lockdown is to implement social distancing, preventing people from socializing and unnecessary gathering, so that to prevent the spread of disease from one person to another.

Effects of Lockdown

Lockdown wasn’t easy and was quite harsh experience for daily wage laborers, small businesses, and marginalized sections. These people were devoid of their livelihood and with less saving, find the lockdown financially crippling. That been said; lockdown is still necessary to save lives.

People with permanent employment, usually have the opportunity of working from home and are least affected by the lockdown. Suspension of all modes of transport for the common public caused inconvenience during this period.

Local administration relaxed the lockdown for a couple of hours every day to let people buy the necessary groceries and do other works. However, despite the relaxation people were not allowed to gather in large numbers, roam unnecessarily, and Necessary government offices and emergency services like municipalities, hospitals, police, etc. worked as usual.

Solidarity in Lockdown

Though the lockdown in India is harsh on marginalized sections of the society; people from different walks of life and several organizations have come forward for help. As soon as the lockdown was imposed, many prominent film producers, actors, and business houses have paid thousands of crore of rupees as donation to the Prime Minister Relief Fund. This money was used to be spending on food and providing monetary help to the poor during the lockdown.

Government officers distributed food packages, making sure that no person is left without food in the lockdown phase.

People of India have also displayed a great amount of respect for their emergency services personnel and medical professionals by clapping and celebrating within the premises of their own houses.

Apart from this lockdown today India is second in the list of most affected countries in the world. Lockdown saved us from community spread in India. The vaccine has been developed and soon it will be on the market. Still, some public places, schools, theatres are still closed and it is necessary until and unless all of us get the vaccine.

Lockdown is necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease. It is imperative that we should be strict with the guidelines of lockdown for our own health and safety. The lockdown has been resumed but still, there are some public places under lockdown. Follow the guidelines and cooperate to stay safe and also keep others safe in this epidemic.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions on Lockdown

Ans . Lockdown is the policy that restricts the movement of people and states them to stay in one place.

Ans . The national emergency lockdown in India was implemented for the first time on the 25th of March, 2020.

Ans . The movement of people was restricted in the Covid-19 lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19 infection.

Ans . Rajasthan was the first state in India to implement lockdown during Covid-19 phase 1.

Ans . Red zones are the areas that are highly infected.

Ans . The first lockdown was implemented by China in Wuhan on 23rd January 2020.

Related Posts

Essay on digital india, cashless india essay, essay on child is father of the man, essay on causes, effects and prevention of corona virus, essay on dr. sarvepalli radhakrishnan, durga puja essay, essay on summer vacation, essay on my plans for summer vacation, essay on holiday, leave a comment cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Letter of Recommendation

What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.