As the Philippines prepares to go back to what it was before, a lot of the traditional and cultural practices and activities have resumed: this includes the proposal that classes will go back to the physical buildings as teachers and students finally gets to do face-to-face sessions. This is a sign that we have finally moved to living and adjusting to the reality that Covid 19 will be part of the system, where people would need to live with it, take annual boosters to be protected from it, and be able to enjoy life as if nothing happened. This leads us to a serious dilemma: would you allow your child to attend face-to-face classes alongside children whose parents do not want to be vaccinated?
A few days ago, a local government official has mandated that there will be limitations to those who did not take the vaccine. This includes going to public places, attending gatherings, and even be deprived of physical access to majority of business establishments, such as malls, restaurants and entertainment centers. This also triggered that the possible face-to-face sessions has been postponed, as more and more cases of infection once again threaten to hinder the recovery of our daily lives. With that said, we can only hope that whenever new variants of the virus would appear, the world will no longer be hampered by it.
As the education system thrives to recover, the dilemma of resuming physical classes could result in logistic and health/safety issues. Plus, the fact that there are some families who exercised their right to choose not to be vaccinated, this placed private schools in a position where they would decide whether to cater the students of these families or not.
As fellow educators, I'd like to hear from you:
- When you resumed face-to-face sessions, what were the challenges and how did you manage around it?
- What would be your stand in allowing non-vaccinated students to join vaccinated students in face-to-face classes?
I do hope fellow teachers would shed light on this, especially with what our country has been experiencing through these past 2 years: pandemic, natural calamities and bad politics.
Feel free to message your thoughts! Until next time... cheers!
