In Their Own Words: Students Respond to Life in Quarantine

Rita Clewell is a 13-year-old going into eighth grade at Watonga Middle School. Her favorite topics are art – although there are no art classes at middle school – and English. She loves to read and draw. Quiet, with outburst of giggles that come naturally to girls her age, she seems to be the typical small town kid.

So how was a typical small town kid affected by the Covid-19 closure of h e r school, church and the ensuing quarantine?

In her own words, Rita said, “ When they said the school was shut down until April 6, I was pretty chill. I thought ‘I won’t miss anything important’” because she didn’t have any pressing projects to finish before the end of the term.

“But then they didn’t start back up, so…” her voice trails off, because almost everyone knows schools were dismissed through the end of the academic year and into the summer. The schools unveiled online distance learning, which she was glad to begin.

“I was happy to stay at home,” she said about doing school on the computer. “But it felt weird to do school at home. I do like doing it in my pajamas and taking a break without getting permission first, “ Rita admitted.

But it is the hours that aren’t occupied by schoolwork that are beginning to grate on Rita.

“I miss talking to my friends, and band and technology classes are not the same at home. What I like most about those classes is the atmosphere. I miss interacting with the teachers in those classes. A lot of the fun is just sucked out of it,” she said, with no trace of a whine in her voice.

“It has made me realize how much I took for granted. It’s easier to go up to teachers and talk to them but when you send an email you have to watch your punctuation because it can make you seem entitled or snooty when you didn’t mean to be that way.”

Rita isn’t sure how she feels about what used to be longawaited summer break. She does seem to be looking forward to going back to traditional school, even if, as the governor has suggested, it starts earlier in the year. “I have been thinking about

“I have been thinking about it a lot. This is going to be a very long summer. We’re on day 57 (when this interview took place) and we get to see if we get to 104 days of summer vacation, like on Phineas and Ferb, a television show. I think we are going to have more than 104 days.”

Rita said she will miss vacation Bible school and church camp at Falls Creek and is looking forward to the opening of her neighborhood pool.

When she has the chance to talk to her own children or grandchildren, she said she will remember best how there is so much empty time and advise them not to take going out in public for granted.

One public outing Rita especially enjoys, and hopes isn’t canceled this year, is the fall presentation of Broadway plays in Oklahoma City. “I really hope the world figures itself out before then,” she said.

Another student with fall aspirations is Max Glasgow, a graduating senior at Geary High School. He is 18 and has been accepted at Oklahoma State University where he plans to study computer science.

When spring break was extended, he, like Rita Clewell, wasn’t too worried.

“I had just finished my art project and I had a lot to finish the week we got back,” he said. But that week never came. The assignments from his concurrent enrollment classes at Redlands Community College started rolling in, keeping him occupied, but milestones in his senior year were lost because of the virus and they cannot be recaptured.

Max had been looking forward to baseball season, his last playing organized school sports. It was cancelled and he feels like he will be challenged enough academically at OSU that he has no intentions of playing there.

“I was upset that I missed my senior prom and senior trip,” he said. “It’s definitely very unfair not to see my friends every day.”

There are some things he does not miss, too. “I don’t miss going to sports camps, because I’m not a big fan. I don’t miss school food either, but I love the lunch room ladies.”

Working strictly on computer, Max realized he, too, had taken some things for granted.

“I miss the teachers and how much they impacted me, especially chemistry and art. I had two of the best teachers of my school career for those, Mr. Bench and Mrs. Terrell. They made the school year and I enjoyed them a lot.”

Max had finished his classes for the year just an hour or so before the interview. He was changing tact to his summer job on a nearby farm. Until the end of the classes, he applied a different strategy.

He was taking calculus I, U.S. history and composition II online and used them to keep himself busy.

“I spaced my class assignments out, especially math, to occupy my time,” he said. The composition and history class assignments he completed as quickly as possible after they were made, allowing him to focus on calculus.

There were some other changes Max made to stay upbeat and motivated, he said.

“Before I slept in every day. Now that I’m working as a farm hand, I get up and get around. I help around the house and with yard work,” he noted. He is also deeply involved in creating the senior slide show for graduation, to be held at the school’s football stadium to keep social distancing protocols in place.

There was one thing in particular that Max wishes he could do again. “I miss eating out with Gabe (Kiener),” he said. It was something the pair did frequently before the pandemic stole their senior year.

What will Max have to say about the strange season that is hopefully, beginning to pass?

“I think it will be cool to tell my kids I lived through a virus outbreak,” he said.

The surprising thing is neither student expressed any feelings of regret, bitterness or regret over what they had missed or lost to Covid-19, only things they were looking forward to when life returns to the new normal.

Connie Burcham can be reached at Editor@WatongaRepublican.com

“It just sucked all the fun out of it,”

- Rita Clewell on school without teacher interaction