Mask mandates are harming our childrens’ development

Classrooms may finally be open around the country, but we continue to live with the consequences of putting schools last.

My first grader is struggling in school. He just turned 6 and can t read yet. He gets very easily frustrated. It s hard to watch.

A 6-year-old not reading is not the end of the world. We know he ll catch up. His parents are on it. He comes from a home filled with books. His two older siblings are voracious readers. We have already gotten him a tutor. He is lucky. I think often of the kids who are not so lucky.

A recent story in USA Today, headlined Pandemic first graders are way behind in reading. Experts say they may take years to catch up, highlighted that first graders are especially at academic risk. Reporter Jackie Mader spoke to education experts who said first grade is the reading year and pivotal for elementary students.

It s no mystery why kids are having a hard time. After a year-plus of schools in blue areas being semi-open at best, we ve brought kids back into classroom settings only to have them take insane, unnecessary precautions that actively harm learning.

via nypost.com

The whole mask mandate thing has gotten to be a bit of a psychological block to me. This is largely because they don’t make any medical sense, in spite of what many of the doctors you see in the media say. NPR interviewed an academic physician the other day who chirpily suggested that masks are an essential step to take against the virus. Why? Because they allegedly block the contaminated air from being shared among humans. But this makes no sense, at least with respect to the sort of masks we all wear, with a few exceptions. Lots and lots of air escapes. The masks would be much more uncomfortable if it did not. People wear the masks now, proudly or resentfully, as a matter of compliance, plain and simple. I was willing enough to comply at first, but now at an almost subconscious level, I find I resent wearing one, largely because, I think, they are an absolute pain in neck to lecture in while wearing. But they also interfere with ordinary conversation. It’s one thing if they serve any bona fide medical purpose. But they do not, or only a vanishingly small one. A small thing, but like a pebble in your shoe, it is at first a mere irritant but over time becomes much more. For students, I observe it must be the same, at least for some of them. Relatedly, I predict our bar passage rates will fall for this graduating class. For reasons mysterious and not, this culture of precaution interferes with learning.