The shift and change that everyone has been through this past year is something nobody saw coming. This pandemic over this past year has not seen its end and it’s affecting students traumatically. Starting this school year off with an anticipated hybrid school schedule and changing quickly to full-time online learning, especially with students and their mindsets going into this new school year causes a lot of anxiety. Anxiety is a strong feeling of stress that overcomes a lot of people. People who experience anxiety have a flow of emotions constantly and this change of the school schedules and the overall pandemic has increased a lot of student’s anxiety.

Adaptations to such environments are hard especially for students but increasingly hard for those who experience anxiety. Anxiety is something that happens to many people but the pandemic and the opening and closing of schools have been affecting students’ mindsets and giving many things to feel anxious about especially when it comes to what could happen in the future. Everything has been and is unpredictable which has been increasing the amount of anxiety that everyone feels.

Usually, with going back to school many kids are very excited about the new year but, with the school year starting off with a full-time online learning experience it was a whole game-changer for a lot of students especially those who haven’t leaned virtually before. Anxiety can be caused by many factors and school is one of the biggest because of the amount of emotions and stress it brings upon a person. Virtual learning causes its own amount of anxiety with kids having trouble understanding what’s being taught over a screen. Students also stress about the thought that themselves or their family could get COVID-19. The uncertainty of this situation shifted a lot of students’ regular school routines.

Then, once we finally got cleared to come back to school with a hybrid schedule kids had a lift of some stress and a better feeling that things might turn out to be better and for everything to turn out how it was always supposed to. Of course, only going two days a week for in-person learning and the other three days still virtually. This change also messed with a lot of kids’ stress levels because they were expecting the unexpected. The hybrid schedule makes it hard even as a teacher because of the stress level that comes with having to teach a group of kids virtually and a group of kids in person. This hybrid schedule has its ups and downs but every kid has it differently.

Being able to cope with this huge shift and uncertainty is certainly some type of superpower. Anxiety is something that can affect everyone no matter who they are. Don’t underestimate the power of anxiety and what it can do to a person and what it’s making them go through. This whole school year alone has been a cluster and ball of anxiety itself that is just being thrown at us in little pieces. So, just know that there are more people than you may think that have anxiety and are experiencing the same thing as you. It’s ok to show your emotions because everyone has their days, weeks, and years where they may be feeling