Mask-free in Las Vegas
This video has been making the rounds. It shows Las Vegas schoolchildren’s wild glee at being told that starting tomorrow they can ditch their masks.
They’ve certainly suffered more than enough with this, but one of the things I find so interesting about the video is how their reactions differ depending on the personality of each child. For some, the response is a wild physical outburst, jumping for joy over and over or spinning and screaming. But one boy towards the front, seated at a laptop, lets out one scream and then goes back to his computer, and a girl in the back merely claps sedately. Some kids even seem maskless from the start, and others rip off their masks, twirling them around and around in jubilation:
By William Blake, “The School Boy,” circa 1789:
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me:
O what sweet company!But to go to school in a summer morn, –
O it drives all joy away!
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.Ah then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning’s bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring!O father and mother if buds are nipped,
And blossoms blown away;
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care’s dismay, –How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?
These types of stories are starting to pop up in a lot of places. This one is from Washougal, WA which is near Portland. The next fight is to make sure they don’t return again every winter.
https://mynorthwest.com/3340179/washougal-students-mask-mandate-protest/
Another story. ‘Chief of Chess Operations’ is a great title to have.
https://www.outkick.com/nashville-chess-teacher-goes-off-on-mask-restrictions-at-private-school/
Neo, thank you for the poem. I had never seen it before.
My heart always sinks when I read an article proposing that the school year last through the summer — because kids forget what they learn, because there’s so much more content to cover than in the past, because summer vacation arose when America was primarily a farming country and children had to help in the fields but that is no longer the case, or for whatever other reason is given. How I loved it when the weather started getting warmer and the school year began winding down. Childhood would have been a total misery had school run through the summer. Maybe I exaggerate with “total.” But I just can’t imagine not being able to escape the classroom.
This video stands in welcome contrast to the dispiriting video of kindergartners at an expensive private school in DC marching about, with facial diapers, chanting “Black Lives Matter!”. No rational person could regard this as anything other than grotesque indoctrination (worthy of Stalinist or Maoist approval) or perhaps even child abuse.
Neil Oliver today on lockdowns and children and the damage done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKSmsKHVpdw
I think that the stupidity and arbitrariness of mask mandates are captured in the tidbit that the mandates will end **the next day**. Why not **this instant**, since they’re obviously conceding that the mandate is unnecessary?
“Neil Oliver today on lockdowns and children and the damage done.”
Compare with this…from the masochistic, lock-stepping clowns at The New Republic:
“…There’s no evidence [face masks] harm kids developmentally.”—
https://newrepublic.com/article/165306/face-masks-dont-harm-kids-development
Paul Nachman,
It’s worse than that. In WA state our idiot lifted the OUTDOOR mask mandate on Feb. 9 but it doesn’t go into effect until Feb. 18.
My daughter, with a PhD in speech pathology, knows the damage done to child development and language development by face masks. The New Republic can pretend otherwise if it wants, if it doesn’t care about children.
While I am sure the children were excited, it seems to me they have been prompted or told in advance to act physically excited. Or in other words, even though I am completely against masking children, I think this was staged. Some seem to be trying out for cheerleaders.
Ruth H: that is my impression as well. What responsible and capable teacher would normally allow their classroom to erupt in such a way unless the kids were being “directed” to perform for the camera.
Then again, I have not been in a real primary education classroom in a long time.
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First time I watched this it made my day. Nothing has made me madder than seeing kids get off the bus walking to their house while still wearing the mask they probably wore all day if not all week.
Watt,
I too loved those last few weeks leading up to Summer Vacation*, and then Summer Vacation itself, but I also loved going back in the Fall. I think that may have had something to do with the fact that there were girls there, but Fall is still my favorite time of year. That “back to school” feeling!
*In grammar school my mother would send me to school with a dollar on that last day and when classes ended I would walk across the street to the barber shop, hand the barber a dollar and he would give me a crew cut and a piece of bazooka joe bubblegum when he was finished. I loved that feeling! Perfect for hot, summer days. My wife would not be pleased, at all, but I sometimes reminisce about cutting all my hair off to get that feeling again!
I love, absolutely love(!) the kids’ dances! It’s such pure joy and each kids’ chosen moves gives some insight into her or his personality.
Beautiful!
Kate,
My wife works in pediatrics, often along with speech therapists. The lunacy and damage she has witnessed in the past two years is, unfortunately, too long to detail. My wife does a great job at navigating protocols and idiotic policies while focusing on treating the kids, but the ignorance of so many of the facility administrators, parents, and, unfortunately, caregivers is painful to witness.
My grandmotherly cousin in rural Montana informs me that one reason that neighborhood children visit her is that she doesn’t wear a mask.
We removed our masks at church on Sunday, a week earlier than expected in our Colorado county, but I’m not complaining.
One of the youngsters in my children’s group, about age 9, said it felt unnatural.
My grand-daughter, age 12, has had panic attacks at seeing all the unmasked faces (mostly because her mother has been overly paranoid and preachy about the dangers, because she is a nurse and works with people who are in fact sick – and doesn’t recognize that the rest of us are not getting that concentrated a “dose” being around normal, well, people).