Question

2020 an extraordinary year essay

​

Answer 1

There is always change, but 2020 was a year of extraordinary changes — global deaths due to the coronavirus pandemic, marches for racial equality and justice, name changes of schools and teams, a woman of Indian and Jamaican heritage on the Democratic ticket, NASA’s return to space shuttles — and mundane curtailments that influenced culture. Students read, discuss and debate, and write about these changes and those who made a difference.

What a year.

 When the academic year began in Fall 2019 few would have predicted the changes in classroom routines and celebrations of special events and the early closing of schools. The December 1, 2019, reporting of a viral pneumonia in Wuhan, China, changed after genome sequencing showed the causative agent to be a novel coronavirus, and its spread became a pandemic. All-but-essential businesses closed, people were asked to stay home, and health providers and researchers around the globe urgently sought to hinder the spreading of COVID-19 — efforts to be likened to the quarantines of the plague and the elixirs of alchemists.

 

Staycations, RV rentals and camping surged. Student desks for distance learning were sold out and delivery services and take out grew while other businesses remained closed. Terms surrounding the coronavirus (PPE, nosocomephobia) and its social (safe space, self-isolate, Zoom), medical (epidemic curve, immune surveillance) and economic (WFH, contactless) impact came into common usage and were added to dictionaries.

 

The passing of Rep. John Lewis, C.T. Vivian, John Thompson and Chadwick Boseman were noted for the positive contributions they had made to society. And families of more than 186,392 individuals (as of September 3) in the U.S. who had died from the coronavirus virus were grieved. Globally, Johns Hopkins University reported 864,907 deaths and 26,123,176 cases. Their families forever changed.

 

Into Summer, professional sports teams ceased to play or practice. Black Lives Matter marchers sought change and justice. Bubbles and agreements sought ways to return sports. Statues toppled, school names changed, the Washington Football Team sought a name. But there was no easy answer to the complex issues that demanded dialogue and action:  More Black lives were lost or changed, athletes refused to play, conscience and economics and politics collided.

 

Possibilities remain in the last months of 2020. Whether in a classroom or through distance learning, you and your students will search for the truth and research for context, debate events and issues, form opinions and express points of view in a year of extraordinary change.