Forbes deleted an article written by an education expert who asserted that forcing schoolchildren to wear face masks was causing psychological trauma after the piece began to go viral.
The article (archived here) was written by Zak Ringelstein, who has a a PhD in education from Columbia University and founded Zigadoo, an educational and development app aimed at helping children.
Ringelstein explains how he worked hard to remove standardized testing from schools but that this was derailed when the pandemic began, a process that “transformed the American public education system into something unrecognizable: a system of restrictions and mandates far more repressive than standardized testing ever was.”
Ringelstein attacked the notion that “kids are resilient” and can overcome the onerous COVID rules imposed on them by asserting, “Masks and social distancing induce trauma and trauma at a young age is developmentally dangerous, especially for children who are experiencing trauma in other parts of their lives.”
He went further, noting how the new measures were creating classrooms full of lonely, atomized kids.
“Students in most American classrooms now must wear a covering over their face and stay distanced from their peers the entire school day. In many schools, students are forced to play by themselves during recess. Even for the youngest of school children, desks are in rows. Kids can’t see each other’s smiles or learn critically important social and verbal skills.”
