A mother and neuropsychologist named Jennifer Reesman testified before the Montgomery County Board of Education in suburban Maryland about the harms of the school district’s anti-COVID policies, including depression and anxiety.
Reesman’s daughter attempted to end the testimony by asking for a moment of silence for the students who have died in deaths of despair — from suicide, drugs, and alcohol — during the pandemic and its lockdowns.
School Board President Brenda Wolff cut off the girl and the moment of silence.
I gave my testimony tonight and my daughter asked to read the last part, a request for a moment of silence from the @mocoboe here you can see this request from a current student completely ignored by @brendawolff1 pic.twitter.com/UZhZSc9z8I
— Dr. Jennifer Reesman (@jenreesman) February 11, 2022
To her credit, Wolff apologized when she realized what she had done. But look at her explanation!
I have to apologize. I did not hear the student and I don’t guess my fellow board members did either because they didn’t call me on it. I can’t always hear what is being said through the masks. I truly apologize. https://t.co/blToLsOZhy
— Brenda Wolff (@brendawolff1) February 11, 2022
Imagine that — it is hard to hear children whose mouths are muffled by masks, and sometimes that difficulty creates bad situations and hurt feelings.
Now put those children in masks seven hours a day, five days a week, and put 25 of these children in a room.
How much conversation is killed? How much class time is wasted and learning lost because masks make children hard to hear?
I have been teaching Sunday school masked to other masked students this year and last year. It’s often impossible to hear the students. Even if I hear them, their classmates cannot. Nobody can ready anybody’s facial expressions. These are all real costs imposed by the Archdiocese of Washington’s mask mandate.
Did Wolff realize before today that the mask mandate she is imposing on 160,000 students seven hours a day has serious negative consequences on teaching and learning because it makes it hard to hear children?
Perennial Georgia political candidate Stacey Abrams may have had a similar epiphany last week. When she went maskless in a classroom while forcing schoolchildren to wear masks, her campaign explained, “She wore a mask to the event and removed it at the podium so she could be heard by students.”
Um, yes, that’s right. Masking is terrible for a classroom setting. Abrams and Wolff are correct in concluding this. Teachers cannot teach optimally while masked. Students cannot speak and learn and communicate properly while masked.
After her comments, Wolff cannot defend forcing students to mask. Abrams, after her comments and conduct, cannot defend having teachers wear masks.
They both know this. They all know this.
Mask mandate supporters claim with straight faces that masks are costless, or virtually costless, yet their actions tell a very different story.
