Author(s): Tricia Bogossian
The pandemic is a reality that is present in Brazil and in the world and that required restructuring from all sectors of society and education was no different. With the suspension of in-person classes, remote and distance education was adopted by legislation. Schools, both private and public, throughout the country, began to adopt this form of study, so that students could continue to receive classes at their homes.
The pandemic is a reality that is present in Brazil and in the world and that required restructuring from all sectors of society and education was no different. With the suspension of in-person classes, remote and distance education was adopted by legislation. Schools, both private and public, throughout the country, began to adopt this form of study, so that students could continue to receive classes at their homes.
A saga begins in which teachers have adopted a dynamic of sending classes to students’ homes, printed, via WhatsApp, following schedules and with activities that are now managed by families in their homes.
In this context, children start to perform school tasks inside their homes under the supervision of family members, who are often overloaded with their work, household chores, other children and other contexts and still have to teach content to the children, about the which do not have domain
This caused anxiety to be triggered in school-age children, which has brought harm to the teaching-learning process. Thus, the study aims to reflect on distance education and the anxiety crisis in school-age children during this pandemic period.
For the development of this study, the adopted methodology was a literature review with articles in search engines aiming to achieve the proposed objectives.
The development of the study within a theoretical framework seeks to make considerations about the relationship between distance education, learning through computers and the anxiety crisis at school age during the COVID-19 pandemic period.
During the COVID-19 pandemic period, teaching was carried out at a distance, where students began to receive school activities and classes at home in the remote model.In this context, the Ministry of Health issued Ordinance No. 188/2020, declaring an Emergency in Public Health of National Importance, due to human infection by the new coronavirus (COVID-19), causing municipalities and states to start to edit decrees and norms in order to face the situation, one of which was the suspension of activities carried out in schools [1].
During this period, between February and mid-March 2020, school institutions nationwide suspended school activities, awaiting further guidance from government agencies at the municipal, state and federal levels.On-site classes in March 2020, as determined by the Ministry of Education, were replaced by remote learning for the entire duration of the pandemic. Article 1 of the aforementioned ordinance grants exceptional authorization for this replacement, that the classes use information and communication means and technologies, providing students with tools so that they can follow the contents and carry out assessments during the referred period.
Since the beginning of the pandemic and the consequent adoption of remote classes, what happened in schools and students’ homes throughout the country, was a moment of uncertainty. The adoption of remote learning is here to stay in the hybrid teaching version, showing that the face-to-face classes, when they return, will need to be organized together with the remote classes, as both will walk together so that the quality of education is resumed.
The use of technology to promote learning had to be adequate for the moment experienced and for the reality of students who, from within their homes, try to organize themselves to follow classes and meet the demand for activities that have been proposed. Educational computing can stimulate new ways of learning and teaching, creating diversified learning environments that can stimulate both teachers and students in the teaching-learning process.
In this process, where technology is present, it becomes important to rethink that the world we live in has undergone quite significant changes in recent decades, mainly because of this pandemic. These transformations are, in some way, changing the relationship with the elements that make up daily activities, including the school in this scenario. Therefore, the perceptions of space and time have been changing and it can even be said that most of these changes are closely related to technology and the incorporation of electronic media in school activities.In this scenario, what is present is the need to rethink the education that is made available to students. The focus has to be to encourage thought and activate the criticality of individuals, ensuring that knowledge is produced
reaffirming their positions on issues of ethical origin and the use of values, such as being solidary among beings.
Thus, the collapse of barriers involving space and time constitutes one of the great challenges for this context of Distance Education, perceived as a living organism within the educational scenario that must go beyond the reproductive limits of teaching, involving different media and instructional strategies capable of overcoming the barriers between space and time, making it available not only for the construction of knowledge, but also for living with different sources of knowledge within the educational space. In this way, the autonomy of the student will be promoted, through a flexible and autonomous knowledge, and it is worth emphasizing that Distance Education, before being at a distance, is education.
Today’s advanced digital communication technologies provide the environment and tools necessary for mediation between the educational institution, students and teachers, submitting their virtualities to the pedagogical virtues of a training proposal in Distance Education.
The optimization of information distribution opens up unprecedented educational alternatives, responding to modern challenges, such as lack of time, difficulties in moving around, convenience and lack of qualified human resources for structuring quality courses and programs. In this sense, Distance Education starts to assume a decisive role in the process of training and updating people.
Using informatics to obtain information, using the computer network and specific terminology makes informatics a great way to promote learning, given that it can reach many people and has different implications, according to the objectives of each person. who have access to it. Therefore, the more you learn about information technology, the more it evolves and the less you know about it in its entirety.
All over the world, information technology has been growing over the years and its use has been increasing, mainly being used for leisure and in the educational field, given that each day more students have sought, in technological instruments, a way to learn the most varied matters. Therefore, when talking about informatics, one always seeks to better understand how thinking, especially of children, has been constructed and, therefore, it is developed, in this way, to use the technology available through informatics to promote effective learning and efficient.
Seen as a new form of social product, there are numerous possibilities that it determines different relationships between people in the social sphere, making people use computers to consume products and services, giving a new destination to the information that is conveyed by intermediary technologies.
In this context, it is necessary to understand that the information conveyed by itself does not constitute knowledge. In order for it to become knowledge, there is a person behind it who analyzes and commands, and therefore, when accessing information, it can give it a different destiny. Thus, all the work to be developed with technology or information technology should be placed in such a way as to always challenge students in different ways, generating the same questions, seeking to overcome their limits and change their points of view regarding the last information collected.
In computerized environments, the constructed knowledge needs support to offer students a construction and reconstruction of knowledge, spreading curiosity and interest in knowledge and content linked and circulated by the media, using technologies conveyed by information technology.
In an attempt to define a learning environment, one should try to organize these environments according to the learning subjects, their needs and the contents available to the learning process. Based on these ideas, it is possible to provide students with knowledge that allows them to perform interpersonal relationships in learning spaces.
The importance of taking into account both the needs and the possibilities of students is evident, given what is meant by learning, in addition to taking into account the attitude of educators towards this new learning space.
In this context, technologies are at the service of education, ending up crossing the barriers of the traditional educational process, given that information technology brought to the educational sphere a modernity that allowed it to advance mainly in methodological issues.
Faced with this new educational scenario, where technologies are present, schools need not only to adapt, but also to modernize and renew their teaching strategies and methodologies, making the contents appropriate by students in a more dynamic way, providing opportunities for knowledge is built. In this way, classes become more real and can be administered in other spaces, obtaining satisfactory results.
At this time of pandemic, where distance education uses technological resources through information technology, schoolage children spend most of their time on information technology, which can generate consequences for students, due to the demands and time of exhibition in which they are carrying out the tasks proposed by the school in front of the screens, both cell phones, computers or even handouts. One of those consequences that has come up very often is anxiety disorders.
Anxiety attacks can affect people at different times in their lives. However, it can become a more serious problem when it turns into something that hinders the individual from performing their daily activities.
Anxiety can generate a change in behavior, which has shown a tendency to social withdrawal and fear to respond to environmental stimuli. Anxiety appears as a natural reaction of the body and originates from real or imagined situations that involve feelings of fear, tension and expectation. It constitutes an emotion that aims to protect the individual, preparing him for such situations. The more anxiety appears, with greater intensity and duration, the more daily activities are impaired, with a decrease in the desire to perform them, also impairing interpersonal relationships, which can be thought, at that moment, as a disease.
In childhood, when children manifest this disorder, they find it difficult to make friends. When anxiety becomes a pathology, the impact on social life is catastrophic, both in the social and school context, bringing serious consequences in the future [2].
Scholars claim that anxiety disorders are the ones that most commonly appear in children’s lives. When they are untreated, they can persist for life. Usually in children this disorder is accompanied by another.
The origin of anxiety is found in biological and family factors. When relationships are based on insecurity, anxiety eventually arises. In childhood, factors such as relationships between siblings, the way children are brought up, and the education given in families are aspects that are associated with this anxiety
The ways in which families demand educational issues from their children can generate anxiety for not being able to live up to expectations. Children who strive for perfection and who are never satisfied with their performance, always needing the approval of the other, may have an anxiety disorder.
The respective disorders often end up interfering directly in attention processes and causing damage, both to the learning process and to memory [3].
According to the American Psychological Association, the respective anxiety disorders can be subdivided into four major groups that include signs and symptoms, which can be specified as follows: somatic or physiological reactions, including tachycardia, sweating or dizziness; cognitive reactions; emotional reactions such as irritation, despair, excessive worry and responsibility; behavioral changes, such as social withdrawal or decreased academic or professional performance[4].
Based on the fact that elementary school constitutes a relevant context in the students’ school life and is inserted in childhood, it is at this stage of school that anxiety can arise from countless situations. Students find themselves in the context of interpersonal relationships, involving adults and other students when participating in social events that will require them to adapt and also socialize [5].In this way, what is observed is that, in the school environment, students start to develop attitudes that help them to meet external expectations and also the search for social acceptance [6].Therefore, the social dynamics of students within the school may indicate symptoms of anxiety. Thus, students with extreme anxiety seek not to interact with their peers and thus do not have many skills to deal with these groups, interact and expose themselves [5]. The assessment in the school environment can also raise high levels of anxiety in students, which can occur long before the exam day, as students are worried about not being able to do well.
According to the Ministry of Health (2020), COVID-19 is a disease that started in China and spread to all other countries in the world, something that highlighted it as a pandemic. One of the main factors of this disease is the high mortality rate of elderly people or people with certain chronic and autoimmune diseases. In its composition, it is clear that it is established in people with low immunity, as in the cases highlighted above, hence the concern of many countries.Seeking to minimize or intervene in the transmission of the virus, the government adopted measures with a strong economic impact, with social isolation being one of these measures, through which people are advised to stay at home and go out only to carry out activities considered of extreme importance [7].
Faced with this new reality, the school needed to reinvent itself. Teaching that used to be on-site became distance learning. Schools were closed and face-to-face teaching was replaced by remote teaching.
In this context, children began to receive classes remotely and develop them from home. This confinement and this new form of movement in teaching and learning started to generate anxiety in students.
Adapting to this new way of studying is not simple for students, who started to present anxiety problems. According to data from a survey conducted by the Institute of Psychology of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), cases of anxiety and stress increased by 80% during social isolation.
This education that took place in homes has made specialists concerned about the mental health of students, given this scenario that involves isolation and social distancing and the fact that school-age children are characterized by vulnerability.
A study showed that confinement in the homes of 220 million children in China causes psychological impacts, as they are subject to stressful conditions, such as prolonged duration of isolation, fear of infection, frustration and boredom, inadequate information, lack of personal contact with colleagues, friends and teachers, lack of personal space at home and the financial loss of the family [8].
Due to social isolation, students are not attending the school space, which constitutes a space of great relevance for the development of children and their learning process. What is evident is that there is a relevant loss in the formal learning process related to the deprivation that children are going through, as they cannot socialize with their peers, where learning takes place significantly for their development, with games, interactions, sharing, facing challenges, negotiating conflicts, waiting your turn, etc. Another important factor is the fact that learning takes place exclusively at a distance, generating an excessive use of screens, which, of course, harms the development of children, as well as their health [1].
Distance education requires adaptations to the structure and curriculum of the school, in addition to the incorporation of technological and communication resources. This distance education has deprived students of having concrete experiences in collective spaces shared by their peers and of closer relationships.
Another context observed in distance education is that there is an absence of educational support or what is observed is that the act of teaching occurs in a fragmented way, without a prior structuring and organization in an adequate way, thus constituting , a risk factor to the students’ development process[8].
All this context mentioned has generated in students processes of depression and stress that trigger anxiety, causing them to seek interventions in the psychosocial sphere [8]. The psychological effects on school-age children who are isolated because of the pandemic can be prolonged because of it, directly impacting the development of students.
We still haven’t found many studies regarding this anxiety in school-age students due to distance education and the COVID-19 pandemic. What we have are reports informing emotional and behavioral problems that have prevailed in them, such as distraction, fear, irritability, which are associated with problems such as nightmares, lack of appetite and physical discomfort.
When it is observed that children are presenting anxiety conditions, they need to receive attention, providing opportunities for them to express their feelings and to be heard by family members. For the families of these children who are studying at home, a restructuring was required, demanding creativity to handle this context of distance learning.
The World Health Organization recommends organizing schedules that promote a balance between study hours and playtime, preventing excessive use of electronics and internet, as well as welcoming children to express their emotions, feelings, fears etc. [9].
It is notorious that the COVID-19 pandemic, with the context of distance education, caused school-age children to show symptoms of anxiety. In this context, families need to be guided in order to maintain stability, organize the home environment, avoiding a stressful environment, offering all the support for children, offering routines, keeping schedules, organizing a space to do chores, moments of leisure , etc.
Adapting to this moment becomes paramount, and also seeking help from specialized professionals becomes paramount. It is always necessary to analyze the variables that shape the anxiety situation that the child is going through, in order to help the child to overcome this moment, therefore, all the variables must be analyzed, in order to understand its impacts on physical and mental health of school-age students.
In this way, educational, health and social assistance support is essential, given that this moment of the pandemic will pass and the development of students will continue and will need to be protected, thus seeking preventive measures to reduce its negative effects on the development of students becomes of great importance.
