Rachel, Brooklyn, New York, @official.dairy.queen - ‘Throughout the pandemic, I’ve been in New York City working at a school for children with communication and developmental delays. One of my students, an inquisitive 7 year old boy, is still trying to make sense of the government mask mandate.
When I was first evaluating his coordination skills back in September, he immediately noticed the white tiles in the background of the pictures in our evaluation guide. “How come all these people are exercising on the subway without masks?” he asked. He then reminded me that I should tell them to put on their masks if they’re going to be exercising on the subway.
Later on in our evaluation, I asked him to lay down on the floor with me to do some strength testing. He hesitated--“If we sit on the floor, are we close to the germs?” After a few months of working together using a hybrid model of Zoom and in-person therapy, he seemed to be getting used to the mask mandate. That is, until one day he pulled down his mask, pointed at his lips, and asked my coworker, “Do you have a mouth in there like me?”’