Reply to Is your middle school a mess regarding behavior post-covid?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our MS was messier than usual at the beginning of the fall.  A few disciplinary issues, but more issues with kids with anxiety.  A lot of teachers were a little rusty both on classroom management and just their processes of forming relationships with students in person.  Now things are smoother.

Overall, I think MS  is a pretty joyful place to be. Kids that age are as goofy and off-the-wall as they always have been. I think the kids going outside for lunch adds a really nice sense of spirit, and they often go outside for PE too.  They seem pretty healthy and happy. The 15 min break always has a lively social buzz about it (though right now it has been paused at our school for testing).  I've noticed a lot of the kids seem more resilient and a bit more aware of the world than maybe in years prior--I see it in classroom discussions and in their writing. The top students don't get as freaked out about an A- or a B+ as they might have done pre-pandemic.  So teachers are fairly burnt out from having to retool so many times and cover lots of gaps, but at least for me, I get energy and happiness from the students.[/quote]

Is it all fcps Middle schoolers who are afraid to take off their masks, or is your school better on that? Poor kids.[/quote]

About 1/3 of kids took off their masks for awhile, but now more have them back on indoors because covid is going up again--we've had a lot of cases at our school in recent weeks which has made things harder recently because the work picks up right around now too. 
But nearly all the kids who wear them have always taken masks off outside, and of course during lunch so it's not like they are scared to show their faces to each other.  The 'mask face' thing is a bit of a joke, a lot of them joke about liking how the masks cover up their acne, braces etc.  Girls who like make-up have fun doing wacky eye make-up because they don't have to do their whole faces.  On the whole, I think the experience of being masked/unmasked at different times has kids talking a bit more about the usual adolescent anxiety about their appearances in MS--which is  a good thing.  Laughingly admitting to another person that you sometimes feel more comfortable hiding your face and them understanding and feeling the same is good for them feeling bonded.  But I can imagine being middle schoolers some of them internalize it more strongly.  And some of the kids who are angling for popularity will always use aspects of appearance as a way to try to be mean.  But it cuts less if everyone has already sort of joked about it themselves.

I think the 5-10% of kids who always struggled somewhat though are having a worse time though. Those are the kids I worry about--they either have serious mental health concerns or family issues that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. But I think for the vast majority of kids--and it has nothing to do with whether they are masked or not-- they are fairly back on track and maybe even a little more resilient now that they used to be.

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I cannot believe anyone would argue that teens feeling too ugly to show their faces and middle schoolers bullying each other to remain masked is a good thing.[/quote]

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