Fellow teachers - How are we supposed to teach with masks on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly more concerned about trying to keep group of kindergartners wearing their masks than me wearing mine.

I really hope to God that everybody is getting their kids to practice where masks for 5-7 hours a day

Kindergarteners are not going to be required to wear masks. It has not been required for that age (for good reason) in any place in the world and DC won’t be the first and only. And my K child will not wear a mask the whole day - not for lack of trying but for lack of ability without touching it nonstop and chewing on it both of which pose greater risks. My PK child who will also be in DCPS similarly will not wear a mask.

The FAQ from the virtual MCPS meeting tonight says that ALL staff and students will be required to wear masks.

Yes- they will wear them in but they aren’t staying on to be at all effective. You think they are, you are delusional

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm honestly more concerned about trying to keep group of kindergartners wearing their masks than me wearing mine.

I really hope to God that everybody is getting their kids to practice where masks for 5-7 hours a day

Kindergarteners are not going to be required to wear masks. It has not been required for that age (for good reason) in any place in the world and DC won’t be the first and only. And my K child will not wear a mask the whole day - not for lack of trying but for lack of ability without touching it nonstop and chewing on it both of which pose greater risks. My PK child who will also be in DCPS similarly will not wear a mask.

The FAQ from the virtual MCPS meeting tonight says that ALL staff and students will be required to wear masks.

Yes- they will wear them in but they aren’t staying on to be at all effective. You think they are, you are delusional

I know they won’t stay on. I teach upper elementary kids and they won’t keep them on appropriately either. Honestly though, I don’t think we’ll be in the school buildings anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Yeah my 2 yr old's preschool (mornings only) claims the kids have to wear them. Yeah, whatevs.(unclear if it includes the 2 Ys olds or starts when they turn 3, but same difference)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The same way medical professionals and all other essential personnel have managed for months.

I truly don’t understand the commitment of some teachers to the idea that they are less capable than everyone else. It doesn’t instill confidence in their judgment as professionals.

I feel bad saying it but this really succinctly explains how I’ve been feeling the last week or two. I’ve been going to work, with sick patients, since this all started and at first of course I was scared but ITS MY JOB and I did the best I could with what I had. Teachers seem to be saying they aren’t capable of coming up with creative solutions and seem apprehensive (understandably) about things like masks and standing further away from others than they are used to, but the long winded public social media posts about it just make them sound like they are downplaying their role in society and their skill set.

So PP could you do this and still perform your job? Stand back from your sick patients and care for them just as well as you did beforehand?

My 2 cents as an ex teacher who moved on to a more respected career. Teachers' professionalism is questioned/undermined at every turn, and from every direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Other countries figured it out. Are we that incompetent?

I don't know. One major concern is teaching phonics, for which it's important for students to see teachers' mouths in real time during the lesson. If you know of solutions from other countries, you should post them here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am also not buying a microphone and speaker for my class and figuring out how to rig that up with a mask on-just stop. I'm done with the expectation that teachers sacrifice money, time, their health, basic necessities like bathroom breaks-it's enough already. We need to stop coming to the rescue and let people see what their taxes actually fund. Period.

I can understand your frustration, but you know very well that it will be on you if the students can't hear you and thus fail to understand the lesson. Get a pop-star style mic that clips on your head, or the earbuds that have a mic in the cord.

Agree. There has to be some adaptation ability here. Kids can’t lose in person schooling until there is a widely available and widely used vaccine- that could be 2 years and then what if most people refuse to get it (like the flu vaccine)? School is not out for the next few years. It’s scary, but, buck up! Work on solutions just like medical professionals and grocery workers etc have been doing

No, school is not "out." DL is school, and it is where most of the students, including those who start in-person in August (other than in idiotic states like Florida, where the governor's lips are firmly affixed to the President's buttocks) will be heading by September or October, once this absurd experiment of F2F school in a physical building during a pandemic crashes and burns.

It's scary, but buck up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s just a matter of getting used to it. Medical personnel do it all the time. My family has been working on wearing them more for when the kids go to school and we have all built up to a few hours comfortably in one week’s time.

I don’t understand the constant comparison to medical professionals. Pretty sure doctors and nurses aren’t walking around delivering lectures, projecting their voices to classrooms, reading aloud, teaching young children phonics, etc while wearing masks.

1) get a clear mask , and 2) as a peds physician I spent most of my day talking to patients parents while their kids scream in their laps, so yes, I have learned to project my voice.

It’s really not the same. How do people not get this?

Either they are legitimately cognitively impaired if they don't get it or -- in most cases -- they don't care to get it, because they care more about getting their kids out of their house (and there's a laundry list of excuses why that MUST happen and why anything other than what they personally demand is UNACCEPTABLE) than they do about public health, safety or people's literal frigging LIVES. So they keep throwing around the same BS about how teachers are just like grocery workers (who have 5-minute interactions). They're the same idiots comparing COVID risk to car accidents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other countries figured it out. Are we that incompetent?

I don't know. One major concern is teaching phonics, for which it's important for students to see teachers' mouths in real time during the lesson. If you know of solutions from other countries, you should post them here.

My child has an IEP that includes speech. His big issues (now) revolve around articulation. I thought that his school’s K distance learning was an absolute useless joke; however, I was thoroughly impressed with his virtual speech lessons. His teacher was excellent at conducting the lessons over Zoom/Teams and he was readily able to mimic her speech examples. He also enjoyed the phonic games/activities they played. So long story short, I think distance learning for things like phonics/speech can actually work extremely well, though the big caveat is this was one on one. I’m not sure to what extent it would be effective in a virtual class setting where it’s easier for kids to be distracted.

[Anonymous]

I have my kids watch Charlie Brown so they get an idea of what their teachers are going to sound like is fall.

[Anonymous]

I'm not a teacher but I do have to give briefings all day. One option is to get a small microphone to help undo the muffling of your voice. The mask issue seems more frustrating than it really is, your first day or two in it all day is awful but then it just becomes like wearing pantyhose or too tight of pants - irritating, but you can focus on other things and still get your job done.

Anonymous wrote:I’m having a hard time picturing how this will work. We’re going to be teaching in front of a class of kids with our voices muffled by a mask? I’m also a bit concerned as to what it’s going to feel like wearing a mask all day while talking. When I’m wearing a mask out in public, I’m generally not talking much except for short conversations with a clerk. Even then, there are a few times I’ve caught myself pulling my mask down to speak more clearly, of course as soon as I’ve realized what I’ve done, I pull my mask back up, but that just shows me how uncomfortable it is to talk with a mask on that I would naturally do this. Are other teachers concerned about what talking all day with a mask on is going to be like?

[Anonymous]

There was a really good post on Facebook from a South Korean teacher who has been teaching during this pandemic (and during SARS as well)

Of course COVID is not spreading widely at all in S Korea because of all the measures they are taking. SO teacher and students are in school but wearing masks, staying distant, etc. All measures you should take when spread is minimal as it is in S Korea.



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