Year 13: Week 5 - Moving On From Masks

Last fall, I had a plan. I picked out a bunch of music and activities to get my students going. The 2020-2021 school year was challenging. Students had music in their classrooms, we were told we couldn’t sing, and we were coming up with lesson plans on the fly. The 2021-2022 school year seemed like it had more potential to be normal, and I needed to plan how to get the students back to music. 

It felt good to hit the ground running last fall, and as much as I worked, it was hard to get to know the kids and connect. Even by the end of the year, there were students I didn’t feel I knew as well as I typically did before the pandemic.

This fall, I feel I’m getting to my students and enjoying that aspect of my job more than I have since the pandemic started. It’s not because of my planning. I am doing far too much teaching without well-defined lesson plans, but it’s not getting in the way of me getting to know my students for my 4th and 5th graders.

I talked to one of the 5th-grade classroom teachers about this, and he agreed. He also felt like he was getting to know and connect with his students faster than he did last year. So we chatted, trying to figure out why and he concluded, “well, we’re not wearing masks.”

This recent study argues that mask-wearing for children has no clear benefit. One thing mentioned in this article is that many people don’t see a downside to children wearing masks, so why not take this precaution, even though masking is effective?

It will take years and a lot of time and energy to fully understand the long-term effects of masking on children and teachers and how this has affected education. However, I know right now how much a lack of masking has changed how I have gotten to know and work with my students.

There were students I got to know first with their masks on, and then when I saw them later without their masks, it was really hard to process. I had only seen half of their face, and my imagination often filled in the rest of the face inaccurately and sometimes didn’t fill it in at all. So all I knew of that face was half, reflecting how little I knew of my students. 

It’s hard to feel close to someone who is wearing a mask. It’s harder to be empathetic and show you care when you are wearing a mask. It’s harder to see how people feel when they are wearing a mask, and it is harder to hear a person’s voice with a mask. I was never able to overcome these harder things, and I don’t think it was possible because there is just too much lost and too much hidden by masks. One of the saddest moments I had in my teaching was when close to a performance last spring my 5th graders had to mask back up. Even though they were allowed to take off their masks for their performances, most did not. I did everything I could to prepare them and get them going during their performance, but I just couldn't make it click. 

Nothing I could do could overcome what the masks put between us.  

I love teaching because it is a job that is built on making and nurturing relationships. But, unfortunately, masks get in the way of this. I would be the first person to advocate that me and my students wear masks if it significantly affected people’s safety. But it doesn’t. After experiencing so many wonderful moments getting to know students this past fall, it’s clear that mask-wearing “out of an abundance of caution” isn’t worth it. 

We didn't know about in the fall of 2020. We know better now. 

Now it's time to make sure we do better, and move on from the idea of masking our children.