I have been reading a lot of news reports recently about students. Many have been quite negative, with young people complaining that they are being asked to pay full tuition fees for online learning, that their accommodation fees should be reduced, that they don’t want to wear a mask throughout an entire lecture, that the food provided to them while they are in isolation has been sub-standard.
I have also been reading some of the comments on these online stories, that students need to get a grip, that some people have lost loved ones because of Covid-19, that hospital staff must wear a mask for much longer than the duration of a lecture - even that students should not complain as they are facing much lesser challenges than some in Ireland's past. This is true, and I think it’s vital that all of us consider our current situations with a little perspective. However, I don’t think it is particularly helpful to shout down youthful voices because others may have it worse. The class of 2020 has had a very tumultuous year, with the Leaving Cert, in many cases the most pressurised event of their life so far, thrown into disarray by a global pandemic. They are young, they are feeling under pressure to sort out their lives and their futures, and now everything has been thrown into uncertainty.
There is a widespread notion that students “have it easy”, and most of them probably do. There is also probably some truth in the reports that students have been less likely to observe anti-Covid-19 rules and more likely to have parties… but that doesn’t mean that all of them are doing so, and it doesn’t mean they deserve to be ignored.
We often have a tendency to compare the plight of one person or group to that of another. In one sense this is useful, as it does help to put our own problems into perspective. The experience of nurses working back to back shifts and putting themselves at risk for others is of course more difficult than that of a student whose only concern is that more of their tuition is online than they would ideally have liked. But it isn’t helpful or productive to dismiss legitimate concerns because somebody else has it worse.
I am sure there are many of us who would say we have been relatively lucky during this pandemic, considering the grief, occupational hazards and money worries which some people have had to contend with. But that is not a reason not to recognise that it has still been difficult, and to show understanding where it is needed.