Today was our first day back at school without a mask requirement. While the state, as well as our district, "strongly recommend" masks, such adornments are now an option and not a requirement.
Very few of my students wore them today--and what a strange experience! I don't know how this works in my brain, but since August I've seen only my students' eyes and the tops of their heads. I guess that somehow my brain "interpolated" or "guessed" what they looked like, and in many cases it was wrong--I saw many students' faces for the first time today, and for most of them the thought that came to mind was, "That's what you look like?" There was one girl who, I kid you not, I would not have thought was someone in my class had she not been sitting in her assigned seat--that's how much she didn't look like I subconsciously assumed she would.
Surreal.
I had that experience last May when I attended prom. Last year, we were remote for a quarter, then hybrid-masked for the rest of the school year. My students were diligent about following the rules, so it wasn't until prom that I actually saw them.
ReplyDeleteStudents were supposed to be masked at prom, but it was held on the football field in party tents. When the food came out, the masks came off and never went back. I didn't expect it to be so odd. My unconscious idea of their mouths didn't always match the reality. Just so strange. It's shameful what was done to our students.