Whether we acknowledge it or not, the fact remains that the corona virus pandemic has brought about a new normal. We now live our lives so differently from the ways we had been living before the pandemic. The necessitated social distancing, the restrictive facemasks and the incessant use of alcohol based hand sanitizers all put a cumbersome slice of their implementation at door of the school.
To some people, all these precautions are not necessary, since the virus is after all a ruse. But the facts and figures across the globe are too grim for any reasonable person to tread this dangerous path. With the tons of deaths recorded, it’s so weird that we still have people who are still resisting life saving measures put in place for the good of all of us. Measures that will remain necessary as long as we don’t want to endanger our own lives or those of the people around us.
When the schools were open early last August, it became clear that schools have got a big role to play. For one, the onus of enforcing social distance, the use of facemasks and hand sanitizers fell heavily on the schools. In fact, this is statutory in many countries.
This is understandable as a large percentage of highly susceptible people form the school communities. But this new task only made my job a lot more difficult.
Imaging becoming an advocator of a sort all of a sudden. That was exactly what happened. Being at the forefront, I had to first of all be convinced of the necessity of these measures myself before I could convincingly persuade parents to cooperate with the school. And believe me, this was not easy initially. I had to read up and equip myself with vital information about the virus and the preventive measures to be observed before I eventually felt ready for the task.
And the fact that some parents were still not sure the schools were safe for children to return to made my job as a teacher even much more difficult. We were inundated with barrages of questions about issues and events outside our power. Though it took a lot of energy and talk to convince the parents, we finally got the majority convinced to let their children come back to school and to observe the Covid-19 Preventive Measures.
But for some few parents, all entreaties fell on deaf ears; so at a point, we had to deny such violators entry into the school premises.
This is especially the case when it comes to the wearing of facemasks by visiting parents. A handful of them found the use of facemasks not agreeable. These people gave different reasons why their children could not use the facemasks for close to six hours in the school.
But thank God that problem has been solved now. This is how.
Because many people specifically pointed out what made wearing of facemasks uncomfortable, Choob® produced a multipurpose facemask that is reusable and which provides maximum protection to the wearers from germs and other micro-organisms.
Today, social distancing has become part of history, the use of hand sanitizer has fizzled out, but the facemasks still remain. Facemasks have come to the only surviving preventive measure globally as demonstrated at the just concluded Tokyo Olympic.
Maybe the world remains what it has always been, but definitely our lives aren’t the same. So, instead of fighting a lost war, I have gone for making the new normal comfortable.
My colleagues and I have gained the confidence of the parents and liaison with them to make things work has become a lot easier. I hope the world, one day, can get rid of virus, so that we can stop being at the mercy of viral diseases.