The new school year has started again this month. It is time to get used to learning and relearning things, including the routine that we follow during school days.

A 2009 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology states that a person can learn and adjust to a new habit in 18 to 254 days. So, this season is an exciting time for learners.

Relearning old ways

Since classes were done face-to-face, we can safely assume that students had to relearn the old way of life. From two years of learning at their own pace virtually, students now have to observe fixed schedules of class work physically. They also had to mind not being late to school physically because they have become rather accustomed to lack of mandatory physical presence during the pandemic mode of learning. The previous school year has already allowed the students to attune themselves to the not-so-new surroundings and atmosphere of physical classes in school.

Health protocols

Aside from the challenge of adhering to a certain schedule, students had to follow post-pandemic protocols for their safety, such as wearing masks and submitting medical records (especially Covid-19 vaccination history). These safety measures ensure that students could learn face-to-face effectively without endangering themselves and others. Students, especially here in the Philippines, have managed to survive a whole school year in 2022 through effective sanitation and implementation of safety and health protocols. For this new schoolyear, we hope for even better conditions and for health protocols to be still implemented in schools.

Human connections

Human interaction is essential in learning, especially for the youth. This is why many students had to go through an adjustment period after the pandemic so they could reclaim their social connections with teachers and peers after approximately two years of distance learning. The previous school year provided students an environment where they could socialize even with masks on, and this has proved effective in fostering human interactions among learners and teachers.

Learning setups

While the subject here is the next post-pandemic school year and what students may expect after the adjustment period, the future is broader than just a classroom and a learning setup. There are challenges that this new school year brings, but students have learned to be resilient and hopeful for the future. There is no other way than to learn to become better in order to contribute into making this world a better place to live in.

Like many life events, the pandemic and adjustment period were mere fleeting things. We had to adjust to the conditions to survive these temporal events to make ourselves stronger, to teach us how to value every moment and to make use of each learning experience to relearn things and even learn new ones.