GuelphToday received the following letter from Grade 6 students Toby Warnick and Olivia Oldrieve regarding masks at school:
Hi!
We are two elementary school students and we’d like to share our opinions about what we think about wearing masks at school. And if we think masks should be mandatory or not. This was a project for school as a letter to our teacher. But we would like to share our opinion with everyone.
It’s a hard question. And we are honestly not sure if we think masks should not be mandatory. COVID spreads quickly. And outbreaks do happen in schools even when everyone is wearing masks.
So even if just one kid at our school out of the four hundred kids or so in our school got COVID and we weren't wearing masks, everyone could get pretty sick. And as annoying as masks are, they do help us stay safe in times like this.
However we also find school much harder with masks on. It’s harder to concentrate when you are wearing a mask and it’s much harder to understand the teachers when they are wearing masks too. We feel like it’s a whole new school because of COVID. School used to be somewhere to socialize with kids our age from our class and with kids from different classes.
Now it’s not the same for many reasons. And even though not wearing masks won’t change the fact that school would still be very different, we think it would help our learning and help the kids at our school feel more back to normal and more comfortable. Most of the people in the school are vaccinated so that also helps.
We both feel like maybe there could be a place in between. Like maybe if we didn’t have to wear masks in just our class but if we were with other classes we’d wear our masks, or maybe if a class is in little groups they could wear their masks if they are too close or something like that. It’s not perfect science we know.
But we think everyone at school (and pretty much everywhere else) is getting really tired of masks. But they are also one of the things that keep us the most safe during COVID so we honestly aren’t sure what the smartest decision would be.
But until we become the prime minister I think it’s ok ;).
- Toby Warnick and Olivia Oldrieve
