Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted continuing constraints on the ability of students to interact with teachers and peers. Regarding this imposed segregation, what has not been considered is the effect of learners seeing self as other. With respect to augmentations of their body in interpersonal space by, (1) extending the body through witnessing themselves regularly in videoconferencing learning sessions, (2) isolating the body as a result of spending time apart from peers, social distancing at home, and (3) protecting the body through required mask-wearing where learners now consider who they represent in a mask, there are three important ways in which learners have felt unable to recognize themselves as they did pre-COVID-19. This migration from self to other, involving ingroup/outgroup distinctions, will be investigated from a number of perspectives—both sociological and psychological. Why the turning of self into other is problematic to the psyche will be discussed, as will the possible consequences for this ongoing lack of learner recognition long term, including focus on the new norms or embracing self-directed learning. Based on this analysis, the type of mentorship by teachers and parents that may be appropriate for helping learners contend with these changes will be recommended.
Highlights
COVID-19 is the novel coronavirus disease of 2019 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 [1] virus, named by the World Health Organization on 11 February 2020 [2]
These categories correspond to the different levels of space and will be investigated through the example of the body augmentation that has arguably had the greatest effect on students in each of the three cases—videoconferencing, social distancing and wearing masks
With the result of this assessment, parents and teachers can become better able to provide mentorship to students regarding what they can expect in seeing self as other through their encounter with COVID-19, with the aim of diminishing possible long-term psychological, social and physical consequences
Summary
COVID-19 is the novel coronavirus disease of 2019 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 [1] virus, named by the World Health Organization on 11 February 2020 [2]. The worldwide response to allay this threat has been organized and wide-ranging [6], yet the reaction has included discrimination and violence against marginalized groups [7] Some of these targeted attacks have converted those with a previously intact sense of self to questioning their diminished status in society [8] and wondering about their own blameworthiness for the devaluation, creating fear, anxiety, depression and avoidance behavior [9]. As such, these attacks have created, reinforced and reproduced positions of domination and subordination [10]. As feeling a need to see oneself as other in relation to the ingroup entails a lack of self-compassion [14], personal disconnection [15] and an inability to access and act on what is subjectively important to the self in the context of the ingroup [16], this problem of converting self into other with respect to COVID-19 limitations—for learners in particular—needs examination for the possible long-term consequences
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