Face Masks in School

The teachers and students around me are unreadable. I can barely understand what they are saying, and on top of that I can’t see their expressions. I wasn’t prepared for this added challenge in teaching. There are already the challenges of lesson planning, and trying to keep the students engaged in class. There are so many new school requirements and rules to which I have to adapt. And to make matters worse, their faces are covered up by a mask!

You'd be forgiven for thinking the above paragraph describes a teacher in the US adapting to face masks and new rules at a school in 2020. In reality, it describes my experience as an English teacher in Japan several years ago, when students and teachers regularly wore face masks to school. So if you are curious or worried about the long-term effects of wearing face masks, especially in school, I can give you an answer.

In 2013 I worked as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in a city not too far from Tokyo. I helped Japanese teachers teach English to their junior high school students, and from the very beginning I was not a fan of face masks. I did not understand why on any given day I would see teachers, students, and administrators wearing these surgical face masks all day long. What were these masks supposed to do exactly? Wouldn't it be better for sick teachers and students to just stay home? Selfishly, I begrudged the masks even more because they made it that much harder for me to understand my co-teachers and the students. Unfortunately, this problem wasn't just at school.

I saw face masks being worn in grocery stores, convenience stores, malls, movie theaters, train stations, theme parks, etc. Basically, they were everywhere. Now, this doesn't mean all people wore them all the time. Most people wore them for the same reason we are now being instructed to wear them here in the states, to stop the spread of illness. So people in Japan typically only wore a face mask out in public when they were sick, or were going the extra mile to avoid getting sick....typically.

At my schools in Japan I noticed that some students actually did wear a face mask day after day, week after week, month after month. The face mask might as well have been a part of their school uniform. Maybe some of them were being overly cautious about their health, but many did it to cover up embarrassing acne, or to help hide crooked teeth. All this to say, many students wore a face mask on a regular basis throughout the school year.

And what were the harmful results of all this mask wearing? Well...there weren't any. Aside from the desired results of preventing the spread of illness, and/or covering up one's facial or dental imperfections, there were no adverse effects. Students were fine. They went to their classes, participated, talked, and goofed off in the hallways. Teachers regularly taught their classes while wearing masks too.

In 2020 you can imagine my surprise when Americans started claiming that face masks could cause harm. Sure, it's inconvenient. Sure, it's a hassle to wear one out in public. Of course it's difficult to enforce kids to wear masks through the school day. Of course teachers find it difficult to teach through a face mask. There is no reason why Americans would find wearing a face mask a normal or easy thing to do. We're not used to it, just like I was not used to it when I started living in Japan. Wearing face masks is not a normal part of our culture. It was always going to be a pain and hassle to get our whole country to adopt a new hygiene habit overnight. But harmful? No.

There's no CO2 damage. Face masks have nothing to do with shaming people. I watched countless students go about their normal school lives while wearing a face mask, and nothing bad happened. Nobody gave face masks a second thought.

If someone is opposed to face masks because they don't think the government, corporations, or society should enforce wearing them, I understand that position. However, I would encourage that person to think about it like hand washing. Nobody likes to feel forced to do anything, but if what society is forcing you to do is wash your hands in order to stop the spread of disease (especially during a global pandemic) and you refuse to wash your hands regularly because you believe it will cause you harm, or that the government is trying to control you through hand washing...You'll pardon me if I struggle to see the injustice.

Face masks are a hygiene practice. Nothing more, nothing less. Just because they are new and different in our USA culture, doesn't mean they are new and different everywhere. There's a big world out there with lots of people who do things differently than us. They've been wearing face masks for a long time, in and out of school, and they are just fine!