Dear Unmasked Teacher,
Am I the only teacher who feels like gradually shedding the mask this week feels a bit like the dream where you show up to class in heels and pearls but forget pants?
After digging my makeup, smeared mask out of my purse every morning for the last nine months, I’m not sure what I expected to feel, but I don’t think feeling naked was part of it.
But then again, nothing about this year has been as I expected it to be. Can anyone relate?
The local school board decision to “recommend” but not “require” masks hence forth was a controversial decision for sure. I applaud the efforts of any person who has to make a tough call these days. It’s impossible to please everyone. The final verdict: some people will continue to wear masks. Others will not, and we all must learn to coexist with that decision.
And maybe that’s the biggest takeaway students will remember about this year.
How do we follow rules, comply when needed, stand up for what we believe in on either side, build a case for or against a topic, fight fair, be respectful, agree to disagree, and maybe even learn to agree with what we were once diametrically opposed to?
I’ve heard a lot about learning loss this year. I would say there is some for sure, but I also, unequivocally, believe students all over the world have had a front row seat to one of the best learning opportunities they might experience in their lifetime.
Rest assured, they are watching, listening, and paying attention to the adults in their lives. It’s up to us to be the kind of adults that are worth looking up to.
Monday, when I could see several bare faces for the first time in nine months, I saw the radiant countenance of kids who were happy to be at school.
I even saw one big ol’ boy in the hallway calling his mom. “Mom, I am not required to wear my mask today. It’s been nine months, and I can finally take my mask off!” I heard him exclaim with a salty tear streaming down his cheek.
The irony of nine months of being hidden, to seeing a face for the first time, to a mother and son sharing a sacred moment of joy was not lost on this English teacher who sees new birth around every corner.
It made me happy to see him happy.
In this observation, I was reminded of the many years I taught Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil.” For anyone who knows the story well, the minister wore a black veil for decades and was judged unmercifully simply because his parishioners could not understand why he was wearing it. He would never disclose why he was wearing the veil, so they assumed the worst— a hidden sin, an illness, a marred face.
None of these theories were true.
On his death bed, he uttered the memorable phrase, “I look and lo, on every visage (face), I see a black veil.”
Like the minister, I long for the day when the internal mask of cruelty will be removed forever.
If there is one thing, I think we can all agree upon, it’s the fact that the scariest masks we wear in this life are the ones nobody can see.
Wouldn’t it be something if there could be a vote to remove those as well?
-CDB