Queen’s College
“...connecting legends to the glorious future”
Alumni Association
VIRTUAL LEARNING Caliope Couchell-Wilson
Class of 1997 (Dyer House)
The perspective of the QC Parent We are surviving…sort of... While many of the hiccups of virtual learning have smoothed out over the past year and a half, and we know so much more than we did, every day is still a struggle with new challenges. My family frequently experiences frustration, depression, anxiety, and grief. Unlike last year, there seems to be a new expectation this semester that the goal is no longer to just survive but also to thrive...which seems unattainable and adds more stress to the task of survival. As college deadlines and national graduation requirements loom, priorities that had been put on hold are now being pushed forward full steam without a lot of the traditional support and tools.
started new lives without the traditional send-off. The treadmill of life is at full speed, with not enough hours or energy in a day to accomplish all we wish to. Children are left home alone as we return to our offices, often with heavier workloads as we play catchup on months out of office and cover for colleagues caring for young children or in quarantine. We are torn between trying to support our children while pacifying bosses and clients who are less sympathetic than they were last year, as we all struggle to keep businesses afloat.
I am not on the same schedule as my kids. When I hit the weekend, I crave time at home; I just want to crash on my couch and catch up with household chores. However, my children, who have As we leave lockdown, the challenges been home alone all week, are anxious have changed, and we aren’t all in the to escape our house and interact with same boat. Jobs have been lost or had others. They are struggling with a prison to be sacrificed to allow for childcare. sentence, which doesn’t get easier the Longtime friends and family members longer they are incarcerated. It is a have died without us coming together or massive feat for them to keep up with all stopping long enough to properly mourn. their school work, and at times they are Tensions rise as the unending vaccination more successful than others. Although debate rages on dividing households. their teachers go above and beyond to Parents have little time and energy for offer support, they feel the loss of peer each other as they struggle to meet the interaction and support keenly. They needs of their families...when was the miss the ability to ask a classmate for last time anyone went on a date night?! help with an assignment, vent about Even the QC community has changed as their workload with friends, or have longtime members have had to make a better sense of how others did on a hard decisions to leave our beloved test. It doesn’t help that social media is institution. Seniors have graduated and Continues on page 15 6
#WeAreForeverComets