By Rachel Hajec
Editor’s note: Part two in a series examining education in a post-Covid era.
It was early March 2020, and students, parents and faculty at Long Island schools received phone messages that school would be closed for two weeks throughout the country owing to the highly contagious coronavirus. Students were joyful for a few weeks of rest and little to no homework, until two weeks turned into three years of disruptions caused by the virus, including long periods of online learning.
At the time, no one could have understood the impact that the pandemic would have on young people, and even though the state of emergency has been lifted for more than a year because of declining Covid-19 cases, many students now face mental health issues, which rose 20% since the start of the crisis, according to nonprofit and healthcare officials.
In the New York metropolitan area, there has been a 15% increase in teenagers and young adults experiencing mental health issues, according to the National Library of Medicine and the New York Health Foundation.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness in Nassau County strives to help those with a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness and improve their quality of life while educating the people around them (family, friends, peers and educators, among others) and demonstrating how to encourage and guide them through their pain.
Janice Garfinkel, vice president of the NAMI board and organizer of the Ending the Silence movement group, and Liz Hildebrandt, executive director of the NAMI board, discussed how Nassau County’s youth is affected by the current educational system, their perspective on mental health issues and what they have each seen inside and outside of local schools.
“When I come into some of these classrooms, I see all these posters about mental illness, but does that compare with lived experience?” Garfinkel said.
“When symptoms build in your body, some students are not understanding it, and the curriculum [taught in the schools] is just about general health and wellness, but it does not get into behaviors, and then [the students] are reprimanded instead of addressed,” Hildebrandt said.
Teaching and learning were altered around the world during and after the pandemic. As children in elementary, middle and high school missed lessons in foundational and influential courses, it is important to recognize, educators say, that falling behind in classwork can affect mental health.
Despite in-person classes now occurring, and a decreased use of masks and isolation, students are still isolating themselves mentally and emotionally from their peers and educators in school, according to educators. No matter the age group of teens and young adults, each generation has had to overcome and live through each new learning curve that was brought with the pandemic without addressing the increase in mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.
Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds, president and CEO of the Garden City-based Long Island Family and Children’s Association, discussed his own analysis of student behavior and how the pandemic has affected and continues to affect their everyday lives.
“Post-Covid, students are experiencing very high levels of anxiety, depression and insomnia, and access to mental health services for young people remains limited,” Reynolds said. “Kids who are struggling with mental health conditions often experience a dip in their grades and school, which then becomes a vicious cycle where interrupted learning and worsening mental health conditions make the transition to adulthood infinitely harder.”
Janeen Chasan, a licensed creative arts therapist and owner of Creative Arts Therapy Source in Garden City and Levittown, discussed the most common struggles in students and how parents, guardians and administrators can help them.
“I would say some of the most common issues I have seen are ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] and anxiety, specifically social anxiety involving bullying in schools, which can affect a student’s self-esteem and how they perform in the classroom,” Chasan said. “I think one of the most important things for a parent or a teacher to do is to really listen to the students and be observant.”
