The Case Against Masks at School Essay Sample

Who would have thought that we’d have to stay at home for several months and wear a mask every time you would go out? Things got slightly better, people started seeing each other, leaving their houses, going to school etc. Many places around the world opened up but the masks stayed crucial as a normal part of your daily routine. You would need it for school, work, and for any place that you need to go that is public. Now that it is all improving, things are slowly changing back to normal. Many places in the US no longer require masks as a need to go to public places but still need them for anything health care related. The only place that waited to drop the mask mandate was LA county. It all ended on March 11 at 11:59 pm when schools and most of the public places did not need masks.

These masks have caused many problems in society and the more we reduce using them, the fewer problems there will be. Now that this is almost completely over, things have been better than ever and dropping the masks was a great decision. Masks are a big change in everyone's lives, especially students. The masks may protect the students from getting sick while at school but it interferes with their learning and communication. The LAUSD schools began their in-person classes in august 2021 but you had to wear masks indoors and outdoors. Wearing a mask can disrupt a student from their ability to learn and communicate to their peers and teachers. USC, a private research university in LA county wrote an article explaining how the masks can cause communication to be much more difficult. “Covering the lower half of the face of both teacher and pupil reduces the ability to communicate.  In particular, children lose the experience of mimicking expressions, an essential tool of nonverbal communication. Positive emotions such as laughing and smiling become less recognizable, and negative emotions get amplified” (Mandatory Masking of School Children is a Bad Idea).

These masks that are supposed to protect people from getting Covid are causing people to have a negative impact on communication with others. In my own experience, masks have caused me to have a lack of communication with other people in not only school but in many places. Without a mask, you are more able to connect to the people you are communicating with. Another thing might be that it might make communication easier for people with disabilities such as being deaf. A lot of people who are deaf adapt to reading other peoples lips to signify what they are saying and to communicate with them. With masks, it makes it much more difficult for them to learn and communicate. Without having the ability to read other peoples lips it makes it much more difficult to get through each day. This can make school harder, hanging out with others, and even going anywhere in public. Though masks create a safer protection for you, they also are able to cause a negative for many people. Things would be much harder for not only students and people with disabilities but everyone. These masks create an unconnected and difficult world to live in. Masks are not only negative for communication but also for the environment. Ever since the pandemic started, people have been using masks ,but they always end up on the floor being stepped on and no longer usable. These masks end up going to the ocean harming the environment. When they are in the ocean, heavy metals and plastic fibers would be released causing it to be unsafe for the animals living there and also harming the environment.

Dr Sharp, who is a member of the Welsh Government Covid technical advisory group had thoughts about this statement and has shown that these masks are causing the pollution rate to rise and that it can get worse overtime if we don't do anything about it. I would say that since the masks are optional, fewer people will be using them which means less will be sold and less will end up in the oceans. “He said the heavy metals found were also ‘bio-accumulative’, which means they are not removed from the aquatic systems, and they build up over time” (Covid: Disposable masks pose pollutants risk, study finds). The drop of the mask mandate can improve the amount of pollution that was caused from the masks. Now there are fewer masks and if they were to no longer be used, the problem would drop substantially. Even though the masks can be thrown away, and they are helpful in many ways, they are still harmful to the environment and could cause the world to change negatively. Since these masks can build up overtime, this can harm many organisms and cause many things to shift. Here in LA county, we were one of the last places to end the mask mandate which meant a longer time of having masks. This caused many masks to end up in the ocean or other places harming the environment. I think it was a very beneficial idea for society to drop the mask mandate in many ways.

More students and people in general are able to communicate with others while feeling more connected and also the pollution caused by the masks can be reduced. The fewer people that wear masks can reduce anxiety, miscommunication, and harm to the environment. Now that LA county is finally having the masks be optional, more people are connected and I really think that they can make the world a better place both emotionally and scientifically.