I was feeling pretty good about fall classes until I went to a lunch meeting yesterday and kept hearing the word pivot. "We have to be ready to pivot on a moment's notice," they said, and I'm sure it's true but all this talk of pivoting makes me dizzy.
It was a great meeting--faculty and staff talking about what we'd learned from pandemic teaching and what techniques we'll hold on to. Everyone loves Zoom office hours, and I agree: students seem much more comfortable bringing their writing problems to me if they don't have to actually enter my office. (Why? My office isn't scary! I have toys!) Some methods of online discussion seem really helpful and I'll probably continue to use them, although not to the extent I did in the past year. Several people talked about how much they love teaching online from the comfort of home, which of course is irrelevant to my situation since I lack sufficient bandwidth to Zoom from home.
Everyone wants to see the end of masks in the classroom, but there were some notes of caution. The current policy is that unvaccinated people are supposed to wear masks on campus, but there's no enforcement so we're on the honor system. Our campus is collecting data on vaccination rates so we know that not everyone is vaccinated--and yet I haven't seen anyone wearing a mask on campus all month. Clearly, some unvaccinated people are not wearing masks, and while the highly contagious Delta variant is not yet running rampant in our area, it's only a matter of time.
Which is why we need to be ready to pivot. We're still waiting for the definitive word on masking policies for the fall semester, but meanwhile, I've been assuming that things will be pretty much back to normal. But it's entirely possible that Fall 2021 could become a repeat of Spring 2020: starting off normal but shifting to online or hybrid teaching at some point following a massive outbreak of Covid-19.
Better keep my dancing shoes handy--and stock up on Dramamine for the vertigo.
4 comments:
My current plan is to add an are you vaccinated question to my anonymous first day of class survey (and remove some identifying information like age), and if anybody answers no, I will teach masked and let the students know its so they feel comfortable keeping theirs on given that someone in the class isn't. Hopefully everyone will be, but last year I had some Trump supporting anti-maskers, so it's not a guarantee. (If everyone is, then I will dramatically remove my mask.)
This sounds like a good plan, provided that people respond truthfully. I haven't heard yet whether we'll have a campus-wide mask policy or whether we'll be able to establish our own.
Given the absence on campus now of any masks I would simply plan on totally always wearing a mask.
In my county 75% of those 12 or over ARE vaccinated. Covid is rampant and spreading rapidly, exponentially, anyway. It is the unvaccinated who are sharing it freely, not wearing masks, not taking precautions and risking the lives of children under age 11 and anyone who is immune suppressed or old. Look at the current reports about the impact of even mild and asymptomatic covid survivors and long haulers. Covid is often life altering.
I MASK. I am fully vaccinated.
IF your county is around 50% vaccinated (as many states are) that means 1/2 of your class would be wearing a mask as part of the honor system and 1 out of every 2 people you see on campus would be wearing a mask. You have already said they are not.
However in real life, I have found people who believe covid is real and vaccines work are still most apt to be wearing masks because they believe in the Delta variant too; so unless 100% of the population in your class is wearing a mask I would not unmask. And if they are you should keep yours on too! Those who are unmasked are extremely likely to be those who ARE NOT vaccinated.
I strongly prefer you alive and posting. I suspect your grands and children prefer you alive and healthy too.
Yes, staying alive is definitely at the top of my priority list. Thanks for the insight!
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