Schools Crazy During the COVID-19 Pandemic 2
During the hot summer vacation of 2021, I received a sudden call from an administrator.
The call was about teachers being given priority access to COVID-19 vaccines, inviting me to apply.
Vaccinations are optional, not mandatory, in Japan, but I felt this was a form of peer pressure unique to Japanese society.
I had decided from the beginning that I absolutely would not vaccinate, so I politely declined.
The administrator was very surprised by my response.
According to the administrator, they had called many teachers, but I was the only one who refused.
Word of my refusal to be vaccinated spread throughout the staff room, and I came under pressure from other teachers.
Since I was the teacher who refused, I flatly refused to take students to the vaccination site after school.
The other teachers took students to the vaccination site after school in taxis arranged for them.
Some schools even chartered large buses to take students.
Am I the only one who thinks this is mandatory, not optional?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, graduation ceremonies and school trips for 2021 have been canceled and the entrance ceremony has been postponed.
We teachers taught online classes alone in empty classrooms.
Objectively speaking, it must have looked quite comical to see me alone speaking to nearly 40 students on screen.
