“The fact that masks are not mandatory in the classroom does not mean that, if students feel more comfortable wearing them, they cannot wear them. No one should be ashamed to wear it because they have every right to do so. Just as they respect those who no longer wear it, they have to respect them for wearing it”. This is the reflection made yesterday by the 5th grade teacher from Can Gerxo Primary School, Fernando Gómez, first thing in the morning.
The kids returned to the classrooms after the Easter vacations with a change, which was not that they had to set the alarm clock to go to class, but that they could now be inside the school without a mask. “It feels strange because we’ve gotten used to wearing them, but I’m happy. Before it was hard to breathe in class and now, no,” said Lucía Herrero.
In all classrooms the mask has been maintained since September 2020, when the Balearic Govern allowed the return of students in person. And it is worth remembering that with the announcement of the state of alarm on March 14, 2020, and the consequent confinement, teaching became 100% online from that moment until the end of the course.
In order to guarantee the safest possible start to the school year, the use of masks was made compulsory, as well as the possibility for the centers of the Pitiusas to adopt the model that best suited them, according to their characteristics and number of students: classroom or blended learning. In addition, ‘bubble groups’ were created to control the pandemic in the event that a student tested positive for covid.
Relief without a mask
“It’s really cool to be like this”, acknowledged the student Laia Asensio yesterday on the first day without masks. “You no longer have to breathe your own air that stayed inside the mask,” she added. She was happy because she “missed seeing her classmates faces properly”. Despite the fact that in the playground they could already go without it, this student stated that there are friends whose faces she hasn’t seen since third grade. She is now two grades higher.
Ariel Arteca also spoke of “feeling good”. He, like most of his classmates, decided not to use it because “it had been too long”. However, he said he is aware that he has to continue to use it on public and school transport and in health and social-health centers.
This is one of the big changes during the school year and one more step towards recovering all the normality we lost in 2020. However, some things remain. While Gomez explains that they can make whatever decision they want regarding the use of a mask, a little boy throws a note at the desk of his classmate, who put it in their pencil case and zipped it up quickly so they wouldn’t get caught.
In the 1st grade class they were happy, one even opened their mouth to show the teeth they had lost while wearing a mask. Their tutor, Pura García, who has chosen to continue wearing it, explained that, from her position, she has the duty to explain to them what the current situation is because “they think that there is no more covid”, she said.
That is exactly what Lucía Cardona, a second-year student, answered when asked why she thought that its use was no longer mandatory. Even so, “I’m happy because the rubber bands behind my ears don’t bother me anymore”. Her classmate Sara Viqueira pointed out that “at school they told us we could take them off, so I don’t wear them”.
Her tutor Neus Tur acknowledged that it is “weird” even for her. “There are movements we make with our mouths that we are not aware of and now I’m going to have to control myself,” she stressed. But it is good news. “Many times they didn’t understand me, I even had a microphone to speak into,” she recounted. “Now I’m sure everything will flow more,” she added.
Empty Face Syndrome
In the third grade classroom of CEIP Can Guerxo most of them did not wear masks, although some, as is the case of Marcos Sarmiento, still feel a long way off not wearing one. “I still wear it because I’m a little embarrassed to have my classmates see my face,” he said. “I’m more comfortable like this.”
This is what experts have called the empty face syndrome, which can occur for two reasons: on the one hand, there are those who are afraid of catching it and, on the other hand, those who are afraid to show their bare face to others.
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