Steven Gross
& Ravenswood Elementary School

Steven Gross & Ravenswood Elementary School

I selected this family as they had two children in the CPS school system attending Ravenswood Elementary. By the time we started one child had switched schools and was now going to Catholic school which didn’t have remote learning.  As I searched for more families to photograph for the project little response was forthcoming as this was near the beginning of the pandemic no one wanted to let a stranger inside their home. There was so little known about the virus and how contagious it really was.

I set out not knowing really what to expect. What I found was a child struggling with remote learning as well as a father who was struggling with his child and how he could keep him engaged in the learning process. I had little to compare too, as this has never happened in my lifetime and my children had already graduated high school and one of them was working remotely for college credit. There is a big difference between a college age learner and an elementary student.

From what I can access was that remote learning is not so easy and no doubt a lot of children lost quite a bit of time in their studies.

We all may be back in school now, many without masks as the people feel the virus is gone and they are done with the mitigation efforts, unfortunately the virus is not done with us. Only time will tell if there has been enough protection through vaccination and infection to keep us from going to remote learning again.