Six years ago, students and teachers woke up to the news of having no school for two weeks, zooming into months of school online. The Class of 2026 at Boston Latin School holds a unique distinction: they are the last class to have experienced BLS online.
The peak of COVID-19 in March 2020 created a lot of uncertainty for schools and students. Administration needed to keep students and faculty safe while continuing education at the same time. School, therefore, moved online to platforms like Zoom and Google Classroom.
For both teachers and students, the transition to online learning was a leap into the unknown. For starters, no one knew how long it was going to last or what exactly the school year would look like. Learning online at BLS required the use of many online applications, such as Zoom. Tanny Dang (I) describes the app as “an unfamiliar platform,” adding, “It came out of nowhere. […] The first month of school was definitely interesting, just because nobody knew how to use this app.” He also recalls how navigating online assignments was confusing and how teacher-student communication posed a challenge.
The shift from in-person to online learning completely changed how teachers had to approach their curriculum, requiring digitizing paper assignments. “It definitely required a lot of thinking outside the box, [which was] a little bit more extra work than what I was previously used to,” BLS math teacher Ms. Erica Peñaloza notes.
Even one of BLS’s most feared traditions, declamation, had to be rewritten for the digital space. The Class of 2026 was able to evade performing their pieces in front of an audience, instead submitting recordings of themselves. Dang notes, “I think a key memory I would have made as a sixie, if I learned in person, was being […] scared to declaim in front of a classroom of unfamiliar kids.”
To many, the hardest adjustment wasn’t the technology but the isolation it brought. As the Class of 2026 spent a major part of their formative years behind a screen, they were robbed of the opportunity to build friendships. The transition back to in-person learning was met with both disconnect and social anxiety among the class. Students had to take some time re-learning how to talk to classmates in person.
Friendships weren’t the only relationships ruined by Zoom. Teachers also had more difficulty connecting with students. When looking back on the Class of 2026, Ms. Peñaloza remarks, “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the seniors that are about to graduate because they were my first class here at BLS. […] I feel like I don’t have that same personal connection with them. […] Personal connections definitely took a big negative impact.”
Even with these constraints, the Class of 2026 was still able to foster connections, albeit in less conventional ways. This included online bonding through gaming platforms and sites such as Valorant, League of Legends, Among Us and Discord.
Although transitioning to seeing everyone in person was strange at first, Larry Nguyen (I) remarks, “I honestly spent a lot of time with these people online. Among Us was probably one of the biggest parts of bonding.”
The BLS Class of 2026 ultimately had a unique sixie year, attending class from home as a result of the pandemic. They were required to learn how to complete work and develop a community with meaningful connections through a screen. Coming a long way from playing video games all day and trying to figure out Zoom, they have now made it to the end of their high school journeys. Within the blink of an eye, they will be graduating and heading off to their young adult lives. Congratulations, Class of 2026!