The mask is no longer mandatory in schools since May 14, and the decision to wear it is now left to everyone’s discretion. If students wish to keep it to protect those around them and vulnerable people, teachers note that young people cover their faces above all to hide their physical appearance, which gives rise to reflections and concerns.
When returning to class on Monday, Florence Coderre, who teaches classes of 2and and 3and secondary school at L’Assomption College, noticed that a handful of students per group preferred to keep the mask on. Not for fear of COVID-19, she tells the To have to. “What I found disturbing was that when taking the pulse, I found that most kept it out of habit, or because it hides their physical defects. They don’t want to show their face, they want to hide,” she said.
These young people told her they felt “exposed, almost like naked”, she adds.
Other teachers reported to the To have to observed the same phenomenon in their classrooms. Some fear comments from peers and want to hide their acne or what they see as physical blemishes, or don’t like to show off their braces.
Although this is not the majority of students, the situation troubles Florence Coderre. “Self-acceptance is already a major challenge in adolescence, even more so when it becomes possible to hide what displeases us,” she thinks. We must pay particular attention to these students, she believes, and open the discussion on this subject. “I don’t want this generation to be the one that remains marked by this pandemic by hiding behind a mask that, before, was not part of our universe,” she said.
Marie-Hélène Lefebvre, school psychologist at the Grandes-Seigneuries school service center, notes that students must learn to assume their small faults. “You have to see how you can calmly distance yourself from the gaze of others. It’s a process, self-esteem is a big issue in adolescence, as is identity,” she says.
Students must be allowed to adapt “without pathologizing anything,” insists Céline Leroux-Chemla, psychologist at Paul-Gérin-Lajoie-d’Outremont high school. It is necessary “to appropriate this change in a natural way without specific intervention. Not thinking about wearing it again or not wearing it anymore and asking why…, let people express themselves,” she thinks. “If the student talks about it spontaneously, welcome their reflection by validating their feelings without judgment,” she adds.
Nicolas Prévost, president of the Quebec Federation of Educational Establishment Directors (FQDE), notes that a majority of students have stopped wearing the mask after the lifting of the obligation on May 14 and reiterates that schools leave the freedom to wear it or not.
“The student will not be asked questions about why he is wearing the mask,” he said. But if a situation of this sort comes to our ears, as school counsellors, our role is to work together with the parents to see what we can do to help the young person rebuild his self-esteem. He adds that there has been an increase in anxiety and mental health issues among students since the pandemic, a situation that schools and families must deal with.
Many reasons
Three to five students per class continue to wear the mask in the secondary school where Marie-Hélène Lefebvre works, and the embarrassment of showing up in public is one of the reasons, but it is not the only one, she notes. . “This is not the first reason that the students named me spontaneously”, she nuances. “Some want to protect their grandparents. A student told me that she was afraid of missing school by catching COVID-19, because she has a busy schedule with enriched courses. Others have extracurricular activities with competitions that they don’t want to miss,” she explains. She also notes a tendency to conformism in behavior.
Maude Laverdière, student of 5and secondary school at the Marcel-Landry high school, prefers to keep the mask for prevention reasons, as there are still deaths and hospitalizations. But she feels this pressure not to wear it anymore, because she is in a small minority at her school, even if we don’t comment on it. “The looks don’t bother me,” she said. In my group of friends, there are three of us who continue to put it on, and it’s less difficult. But being alone, I would feel the pressure and I would like to do like the others. »
Still, the idea of removing the mask makes some young people anxious, like the 8-year-old daughter of Émilie Sauriol. “For her, it’s a stress. She is afraid that the confinement will start again, afraid of falling seriously ill. She also said, ‘if I don’t put it on, grab it and give it to you, you might die because of me’,” she told the To have to. Her parents explained to her that the risks were low, but the little one still feels anxiety.
“We are not anti-masks, she is vaccinated and all, but she is stressed, which breaks our hearts. She feels like she has a responsibility to her whole society,” adds her mother.