This digital story recording was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student documentary initiative, called "Stories: Yes." The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
Students from Manchester High School in Indiana worked with the North Manchester Center for History to produce this thoughtful story about how students have been affected by COVID-19.
Speaker 1 (00:16): I remember March 13th, when they announced that we were getting closed, I was kind of shocked that it would even happen. I heard stories about other schools getting closed, but I never really thought it would happen at our school specifically. And I remember being at home, doing things online and the immense struggle of it and getting through it and having to find the self-motivation to do it myself was very difficult. And I kind of learned a lot about myself during it, because if I didn't do my jobs or my schoolwork, I would fail, but it was incredibly difficult from doing that at home. So, over the quarantine and over this past year, I really had to learn how to push myself and how to be self-motivated.
Speaker 2 (01:02): I think the thing that changed the most was my attitude towards it. It became something that I had to do to something that I get to do, because this past year I was quarantined just once, so having to do that by yourself and ending junior year, last year by yourself, it's just not the same. And it made me miss the classroom environment, even if the classroom wasn't necessarily filled with my friends, it's just an environment that you have to be in to make school fun and helpful.
Speaker 3 (01:39): The day of our concert last year was when everything shut down and so that definitely had an impact. And then I think also the musical, we were like two weeks away from our opening night and it got canceled, so those were the things that just turned everything upside down for me.
Speaker 4 (01:58): We have shorter classes, longer passing periods, and we have to wear masks a lot. But for me, one of the things that as I look back, I'm like, oh yeah, I missed that, was during passing periods or even in the mornings, just being with friends and hanging out in the, there was kind of a close that was lost when we had all of the COVID precautions put into place.
Speaker 5 (02:34): I think I'll always remember how you need to be thankful for the things that you have because they get taken away so fast. Nobody saw it coming and then when it did, nobody had time to prepare for it. It was just all of a sudden it was here, there wasn't any planning or anything that you could do to prepare. And it just really made you think about the things that you used to be able to do that you couldn't now. And it makes you really be thankful for the things that you have, because you just realize how fast it can go away.
Speaker 6 (03:07): Everybody seems good on their phone. They're a bit more anti-social than they used to be. I don't like that because I like to talk to people. That's just me. That's the only thing really different I've noticed, people were just more antisocial. I didn't like it. Because we were all coming together for one goal and it didn't feel like everybody was kind of doing their own thing during the pandemic, but we all came together, goals to win football games and it was really cool.
Asset ID: 2022.14.01
Find a complete transcript: www.museumonmainstreet.org
