Luke Witham

Dr. Biffle

Intro to Cultural Anthropology

December 5, 2020

Big Ethnography

Over the course of this semester, we were tasked with picking a topic that we wanted to

perform an ethnographic study of. Because of my experience with working with students I chose

that for this paper, I was going to observe students at the Junior High level and take notes and

observations on their transition into the new school year, specifically how COVID has affected

them. The subject groups I chose to observe were the new students, incoming 7th graders; as well

as the returning 8th graders who I had previously worked with. Due to federal law, there will be

no mention of any personal details involving students, everything in this paper is strictly

anonymous. The research methods I used while compiling the information for this assignment,

was mostly observation, and comparison. All the new observations and information gathered

over the course of this first semester will be explained and analyzed in 4 major sections:

Mapping, Private Language, Body Language, and Rituals. Once the new information has been
thoroughly explored, there will comparisons made to previous years, looking specifically for

how this year is different. In this paper, I will try and avoid drawing conclusions and

assumptions on cause of the changes unless direct information was gathered. However, due to

the nature of life it is important to understand that many outside factors in a student’s life could

be affecting them in adverse ways.

Mapping

To begin, we must start by mapping the student’s day. To understand how private

language and body language have been impacted, we must first understand how their daily lives

have been impacted, this will allow us to examine and begin to form a baseline causation without

assuming to much. First, before the student ever leaves their home, they must participate in a

district wide health and safety questionnaire. These questionaries ask students a series of

questions surrounding any possible COVID-19 symptoms, whether they have been in contact

with someone who tested positive, or if they have left the state in the past 14 days. Finally, the

students must have a guardian take their temperature, if the students is running a fever they must

stay home. On the surface this may not seem like much; however, I challenge any readers to

imagine themselves in the position of the student, everyday having to go through this and if there

is a day that you have allergy related symptoms you will not be allowed to go to school.
 Now, that the student has been deemed safe enough to go to school, they need to get

there, and if the student does not have a personal ride, they must take the bus. From the very

beginning, school wide transportation was going to be a problem. Due to the numbers of the

student who use the service, the district had to0 make serious changes. First and foremost, masks

must always be worn on the bus, there is no exceptions. In addition to this, only one student is

allowed per seat, this removes any sort of socialization that students used to get in the morning.

As someone who rode the bus themselves and works with kids consistently, this socialization is

key for children, they need as much interaction time as possible. Children of this age start to

learn the mechanics of social interaction; they start to grow into themselves through socializing.

After a quite bus ride into the school, students are dismissed one bus at a time, from there

they must go directly to their homerooms. In previous years, students would all be dismissed

from their busses at the same time, then they would report to breakfast. Time in the cafeteria is

potentially the most important part of the students at this age’s day. Breakfast is particularly

important; this is the official start to the student’s day. However, this school year has flipped it

on its head, the students are lined up single file and shuffled into the cafeteria that reeks of

chemicals. Here, they stand three feet apart and grab their pre bagged food one student at a time.

Once they have picked up their food, they then must find a desk, no closer than 6 feet away from

someone else, and only once they have been seated can they remove their mask to eat.

Furthermore, once the student has finished their food, the teacher on staff asks them to clean up

their mess and go back to class, there is no time to socialize or burn off excess energy. Jumping
forward, lunch time is identical except during lunch time there is usually behavioral issues

coming from students who just want to get up and move around.

In the classroom, students are asked to sanitize their workstations and chairs before they

every sit down, and again before they leave. Actual instruction time also looks very different this

year. Students sit 3 ft apart, some behind plexiglass screens: teachers also wear their masks all

the time, some even opt to wear latex gloves and face shields. All of the teacher’s desks have

plexiglass screens. Because of the restrictions and the need to accommodate the students who are

remote, teachers usually give 10-20 minutes of actual instruction, while the rest of class is

dominated by work on the student’s computers. When class is over students sanitize their areas

and leave.

This is the general outline of how every day goes in a public school during the COVID-

19 era, there is little to no socialization and everything smells of bleach and cheap hand sanitizer,

for anyone who has been to school or worked in a school, the current state of daily living is

wildly different from years past. Usually, Junior High Students are all over the place, they are

bouncing around the rooms, talking to their friends. Sometimes there is horsing around if the

teacher does not notice, but they are almost always socializing, even if it is going to another

teachers classroom to get help on the homework they didn’t understand.

Private Language
 Through my time observing students and how the school day has changed, Private

Language and Rituals seemed to be the least changed. To start, trying to examine private

language in a junior high is an impossible task, it is filled with slang, phrases, references to

things entirely unknown to most people over the age of 18. And it constantly changes because it

is a generational phenomenon. Every generation does this, especially at this age, students talk

about the newest and coolest videogames, athletes, social media. These are the things that make

up their lives, so its what they talk about. Honestly, there are some conversation where the

students are using several different types of coding and decoding, everything seems to be

symbolic, rarely do the students speak in direct and proper grammar. I am embarrassed to admit

this but there have been conversations I have had to put a stop to simply because I was ignorant

to what they were talking about. In complete honestly you could write a separate essay just on

the private language of students and how to decode it. However, the one thing that pertains to

this essay and how private language has changed, is the addition of a false sense of maturity and

COVID related terms. Usually, a small portion of students will experience premature maturation;

however, I have noticed that the combination of the recent election and COVID-19 have spread

so far into the students lives that it has started this premature maturation in a larger number of

students. In regular years, some students would try to engage in political conversation, and

almost none speak about global health concerns and situations. That has been the biggest

observable change directly caused by the new world we live in.

Rituals
 In the schools I have been working in and taking my observations from, the daily rituals

have been hard to notice a difference in. For example, the Pledge of Allegiance is still done

every morning. In fact, most rituals did not change at all, if anything happened it was the

complete halt of the ritual. The school district I work in, usually goes very heavy on the anti-

bullying campaigns, to the point of it becoming a ritual, other rituals similar to this one has

changed a decent amount in structure, but not content. The biggest change to rituals that did not

stop was the introduction of Zoom and virtual meetings. This has been the biggest change to any

ritual, the school digitized everything they could to avoid in person contact. Unfortunately for

this ethnography, most of the rituals were either stopped entirely, put online, or have not

changed, there is not much to analyze.

Body Language

Body Language has been the easiest to observe the difference and how it has changed. To

start, in a normal school year, the general population of students is in good spirits. Most students

are happy to be at school, most of the time because it’s the only time they get to socialize and see

their friends. In addition, most students are relaxed, they are in a familiar and safe environment,

they might be stressing out over an exam, or project, but it is not true anxiety in most cases.

However, this year there has been some stark comparisons, while there are some students who do

not show much sign of change, there is an increasing number of students who showed negative
change, and this number seemed to grow as the year went on. First, one of the observations that

caught me off guard was how the students respond to the teachers. Every time a class ends, I

stand at the door and wish the leaving students well and remind them of any homework they

might have, and as the new students come in I greet them in my loud and jolly manner, finishing

nit off with a gentle but stern reminder to use sanitizer and wipe down their desks. During a

regular school year, the students love to engage in conversation, especially the eight graders that

already know me, and the 7th graders usually try to establish a relationship because they want to

know you. But this year, I have noticed that the new 7th graders hardly speak unless you are

speaking directly at them, and then the response they give is usually one or two words. In some

cases, the students do not even respond they just look away and do what you asked them to do.

The 8th graders who are already comfortable, do not show any huge changes; in fact, I have

noticed that they are more excited than a regular year, for them they are trying to recreate that

normal feeling. Overall, the conversation has been very one sided when speaking to 7th graders;

however, as the year progresses, they seem to be coming around. The rest of the change in body

language has been very general and it is hard to exactly quantify. I have noticed that students

seem to show more signs of anxiety or stress, there are a few key factors I have noticed. One, so

far students seem to walk with their heads down and minding their own business, whenever they

are in the halls, they must walk single file. Also, students seem to be showing more signs of

being tired, I have noticed students seem to be more lethargic this year, they seem to care less

about everything. Now, to contradict everything I just said, the other population of students

seemed to go through the opposite change, and I have noticed it moistly in the athletes. These
students are running through the halls, jumping all over each other, they hardly sit still, and they

love to shout. I think it is safe to say that this comes from the fact that organized sports were

cancelled, and these students have no outlet. In conclusion, the change in body language has

been drastic in the school I work at.

Conclusion

Overall, this year has been crazy for all of us, and these students are no different. I think

it is fascinating just how extreme the change has been for these students. My hope is that their

parents and teachers are noticing it as well and doing their best to help these students.