How the pandemic upended a generation

Maoud sighs: the round is going to last longer than he had expected. The little 6-year-old boy moves his pawn to the indicated square, “the challenge”. Sonia, the day’s host, reads the card the child has just drawn: “Mime a person sweeping the floor”. Maoud frowns. He doesn’t understand what the young woman is asking and his lack of reaction immediately provokes chuckles from his little friends. “Have you never seen anyone sweeping the floor at home?” Sonia asks. He shakes his head. “Do you know what a broom is?” Same reaction.

In the municipal hall of Miramas (Bouches-du-Rhône) where a few children from CP and CE1 are crowded that morning, a board game sits prominently on the table. During the holidays, the association Coup de Pouce offers fun activities to schoolchildren from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, since Covid-19, volunteers have noticed a lack of knowledge of everyday words among students. Before the repeated lockdowns, Sonia began her sessions by reading texts. Now, she is reviewing the alphabet.

Disrupted learning

Maoud is far from being an exception. A study published last June by the American company Curriculum Associates, which specializes in learning, underlines that “the pandemic has had lasting effects. In particular on the youngest children, whose learning opportunities have been disrupted.” American schoolchildren “are significantly deviating from pre-pandemic growth trends, both in reading and mathematics.” What about in France? It is difficult to know, due to the lack of surveys on the subject. Our country, too focused on “the purely health dimension of the crisis,” would not have measured “the school crisis,” believes researcher Céline Ferrier, a doctor in language sciences. And studies take time.

When contacted, the Ministry of National Education referred us to data from June 2022, relating to the experiences of students during this period and comparing their academic skills with those of 2021. Conclusion of the information note (1): in terms of the results of CP and CE1, “the negative effects of the 2020 health crisis have been overcome”. The adaptability of young people also does not make diagnosis easier. According to clinical psychologist Aline Nativel Id Hammou, many of them would have slipped through the cracks when they returned from lockdowns. “I received adolescents who explained to me that they cheated on exams to maintain their level,” says the specialist. “They all put strategies in place in order to return to normal life.” The results of the national assessments (read box at end of article) should have alerted the National Education system. According to the fluency tests, which measure the number of words read in one minute, in 2023, 15.4% of students at the start of the sixth grade did not reach 90 words per minute (the target required in CE2) and 31.1% showed weaknesses in this exercise.

Clémence has just started sixth grade. The young girl was impatient but particularly dreaded starting middle school. Since the successive lockdowns, she has suffered from dyslexia. A disorder already identified when she started first grade but worsened during Covid-19. “For exercises in French and mathematics especially, it’s more complicated,” says her mother, Sabrina. Today, the pre-teen needs personalized help as well as a set time to better understand the statements.

After-effects still visible

Three years after the last lockdown, these poorly detected delays have not prompted a specific response from the Ministry of Education. “Schools have compensated for immediate deficiencies, such as the return of students and the educational emergency, but not for the lack of support for children at home,” explains Olivier Beaufrère, a high school principal in Essonne. Students in CP and CE during the pandemic suffer, once they arrive in secondary education, from the lack of essential monitoring in these flagship classes.” And the waltz of Education Ministers does not help.

Those who finish primary school are of particular interest to Grégoire Borst. In his laboratory, this CNRS research director observed that confinements had caused them to produce abnormal cortisol, the stress hormone. “This binds to receptors that alter the development of brain regions linked to learning rules, language, the emotional system, etc. We cannot therefore exclude the possibility that this chronic stress has impacted children’s brain development.”

Worse: even babies could have been affected. When the President of the Republic announced the first lockdown on March 16, 2020, Marine had just given birth to her second child. With her husband, her 2-year-old eldest child and her newborn, they went into exile in a family home. The weeks went by and the isolation was increasingly felt: “I was at the end of my tether,” she recalls. “We had to constantly watch over the little ones and we passed on our anger to them.” The “social and emotional behaviors” of the youngest have also suffered from the successive lockdowns, according to the American study Curriculum Associates. Children aged 0 to 2 at the time of Covid-19 now show more problems with communication, language learning and socio-emotional regulation than other children of the same age. Hanene checks this every day. A childminder in the Paris region, she notes increased nervousness among the children in her care. Some children have lost their sleep patterns and eating habits from before the lockdowns. “They play less with other children and cry more easily.”

A lack of stimulation

In a period that is essential for cognitive development, these babies have not been as stimulated by social interactions with other children or adults. Céline Ferrier, who works with the Coup de Pouce association, gives the example of imitation games. “When a child plays at being a play kitchen, at being a grocer, etc., they learn to appropriate language. However, the fact of having been less exposed to these educational games has consequences on their current mastery of the language.” This is evidenced by the results recorded during the 2023 national assessments in CP. Regarding the exercise “Understanding words orally”, nearly 30% of students showed weakness in this area.

The Coup de Pouce facilitators point out the negative influence of screens. For convenience, as a last resort or through negligence, many little ones have had them in their hands during the lockdowns. Sometimes before the recommended age – 3 years minimum. This morning, Sonia asked her students what they had been doing in recent days. They all stayed at home, in front of their tablets, in the middle of summer. “While they are only 5 or 6 years old,” she says offended. “Children, when they hear words, try to understand their meaning and then repeat them,” explains Maria Melchior, research director at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm). Spending time on screens limits these interactions that are essential for cognitive development.”

While Laetitia Dorey, deputy director of a nursery in Meaux (Seine-et-Marne), agrees with the researcher on this point, she is not pessimistic. According to her, the influence of screens is “fairly” reversible. She cites the example of this mother who had bought a tablet for her child. The little girl had become more difficult to manage since she started using it. “I suggested to the parents that they stop using screens to see if her behavior improved,” she says. “In just one week, the little girl seemed transformed.”

Reasons for hope

So nothing is decided. We know the expression “there is no age to learn”. Up to the age of 25, neural connections are produced in the brain. And subsequently, others are made and unmade, but more slowly than during early childhood. On the educational level, the Covid-19 period has also given rise to many ideas to remedy children’s learning delays, in particular by setting up systems that strengthen the links between parents, students and the school. A video diary in daycare allowing families and professionals to discuss their daily lives, for example, or sending families the weekly activities menu by SMS. “If we want to compensate for students’ difficulties, we must first make them understand better what learning means”, comments researcher Grégoire Borst. An approach that is not always that of the National Education system. A year ago, Sherid (2) arrived in France. The little boy, an introvert, did not speak French. Through games, reading and constant dialogue with the facilitator, he has made enormous progress and opened up to others. Now, Sherid laughs, talks and has fun with his friends. He even allows himself to correct adults who invite him to run “like crazy” to let off steam. “I don’t run like crazy,” he corrects, “but like a fast person.”

1. 2020 health crisis and its aftermath: what do the Depp data tell us? Summary of the Evaluation, Foresight and Performance Department, No. 5, June 2022.
2. The first name has been changed.