The Next Dogma: Forever Masking
As legal apparatus crumbles, district leaders hold onto masking as virtuous identity doctrine and means of maintaining social control
This week, in an unusual act of self-awareness, Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire reluctantly accepted that it’s time to let go of forced masking.
An email released to staffers Friday provides insight in how school districts – at least those that remain beholden to a ‘No Covid’ mission directive – are navigating the transition to mask optional.
The statement – authored by Principal Troy Gobble and Superintendent Dr. Eric Twadell – laid out policies/procedures within school grounds beginning Feb. 22.
Note how the messaging is subtly deferential to a masking culture.
On classroom interactions:
In one-on-one conversations with students, please where your mask if the student is wearing theirs….we respectfully ask that any adult meeting with a student one-on-one please defer to the student’s preference.
In explaining how JCAR and the 4th Appellate ruling (which upheld the Feb. 4 TRO injunction paving the way for mask choice in schools across the state) from last week led to the masking reversal:
In short, the result of these two decisions mean that on a practical level, Gov. Pritzker’s Executive Orders on COVID-19 mitigation measures (i.e., masking, etc.) can no longer be enforced. As a result, effective Tuesday, Feb. 22, we will be temporarily suspending the enforcement of the mask mandate on campus.
Is it just me, or do these paragraphs read more like articles of faith than concessions to the law?
Districts can’t let masking go. And for reasons they may not completely understand.
Creeds and mottos are slogan signposts for schools, have been forever, well before the invention of Twitter-and-Instagram hashtags.
Colorful tag lines such as “creating community of life-long learners” are boosted by the shrewd use of 21st-century nouns like “empowerment” “diversity” and “inclusion.”
They all sound great. Who wouldn’t want to attend a school that encourages learning as a life long pursuit and “empowers” students to achieve their dreams?
Education, sold not as an arduous necessity but an aspirational vehicle to achieving Oprah’s “living best life” gospel?
Show me where to sign.
All was kumbaya and prosperous until Covid happened.
Schools were forced by states to close doors and go remote to preserve the “health and safety” of citizens with a commitment to not skip a beat on reading, writing and arithmetic.
We know how that worked out.
Long term remote learning did not produce results comparable to in-person, and specifically in Illinois, the results were disastrous. With the exception of the extortionist Chicago Teacher’s Union, every union or organization representing educators agreed that physical attendance in the classroom would be a top directive for the 2021-22 school year.
“Keeping students in the classroom is of first priority as we prepare for the upcoming school year”
(words to that effect were in just about every correspondence to parents last summer).
And for the most part, districts succeeded.
The hiccups at the beginning of the school year were mostly a result of leaders buying into Governor J.B. Pritzker shadowy SHIELD testing program. Districts failed to question the wisdom of testing of asymptomatic teenagers when resulting positive tests and quarantines would produce antithetical outcomes to the “commitment to in-person learning” directives.
(Any counter argument extolling the virtues of the “Test to Stay” program is further evidence of blind allegiance to Pritzker’s policies).
Other than the exception here and there, schools remained open, free of the dreaded “adaptive pause.”
But masking remained in the bloodstream. Pritzker’s authority unilaterally unquestioned by Chicagoland public and most private schools (there were a few challenges amongst privates, most notably Timothy Christian in Elmhurst). The governor’s data-less rationale, toady-like quotes (“keeping Illinoisans safe”) were later repeated at board of education meetings without pushback.
Schools, emboldened by in-person attendance went into full beat-chest mode, undaunted in using social media to create unity and inclusion narratives.
Here’s a congratulatory tweet from Lyons Township towards the school’s Scholastic Bowl members:
Did anyone at Lyons bother to question the irony of a team of Scholastic Bowl students, curious and inquisitive about the world around them (isn’t that why they were selected for the Scholastic Bowl?), then executing their capable intellect while muzzled by a useless piece of cloth?
“Well, we’re just following the guidance,” officials will say.
Under “Mission Statement” on the LTHS website:
we pledge to foster the full intellectual, physical, moral, and aesthetic growth of all students and affirm our century-old motto, Vita Plena, the quest for the fulfilling life.
Vita Plena?
What’s Latin for “fetal position?”
District 214, one of the largest multi-unit districts in Chicagoland, posted this tweet last month about house flipping students learning about career pathways:
What’s the point in masking a bunch of students working on outdoor construction?
Here’s a suggestion for a Tweet thread to accompany the video:
We are teaching kids about architecture and construction (great!) but notice how we muzzle their faces during the exercise. We don’t want to be seen as unconcerned about public health. We care about education but also scoring valuable social brownie points in the process.
What these examples do is further condition those in these environments to cling to forced masking as not a public health mitigation (one without merit) but a cultural tenet.
As the legal apparatus crumbles, that’s all they can hold on to.
There’s been some weird things said and written on masking this past week.
I’m not counting the school yard ring-around-the-rosie name calling that went on in Springfield last week. That was just political posturing and made for an enjoyable, lede-writes-itself day for Capitol-based reporters.
No, a wacko religion professor at Columbia University named Obery M. Hendricks, Jr. compared Christians who don’t wear masks to the “spirit of the anti-christ.”
More from Professor Ding-A-Ling who said this on a podcast:
These folk are not fulfilling their gospel responsibility. They're violating it. They're spitting in the face of it. It's anti-biblical. It's anti-Christian. And I'll go farther … what we see reflected in their attitudes and their actions and their pronouncements is what 1 John calls the spirit of antichrist.
[W]hen we look again at these conservatives, these right-wingers that talk about 'You're infringing on my freedom by having me wear a mask' … they don't understand that they are violating the biblical principle of responsibility for our brothers and sisters.
Was Mr. Spock co-hosting this spirited conversation?
If Hendricks were talking about a circumstance where our behavior could be proven to be a dutiful act signifying our fellowship to mankind, he may have a point. But masking isn’t it.
(Pritzker and other imperious politicians know this now. They know the only ones holding onto the mask-or-die precept are the lunatic fringe. That’s why mandates are being lifted as they are now a liability.)
The bigger concern moving forward are not the kooks of the world like Hendricks.
They are the Joy Behar-types.
Behar, host of “The View” TV show and a satellite radio talk show, said this recently on television:
So if I go on the subway, if I go in a bus, if I go into the theater… a crowded place, I would wear a mask, and I might do that indefinitely,” she added. “Why do I need the flu or a cold even? And so I’m listening to myself right now. I don’t think it’s 100 percent safe yet.”
Behar has a platform and audience. And her distorted world view is shared by millions of others in this country.
According to a Politico poll, “68 percent of Democrat respondents said they believe it is too early for states to rescind mask mandates.”
Also from the poll, “inching back to normality…is happening too quickly.”
That’s a frightening revelation. Because there are people in charge of schools who feel this way.
Although there are almost 700 schools in Illinois that are now “mask choice,” and many that flipped after the Feb. 4 TRO and last week’s appellate ruling, it would be wise to not get too comfortable.
We have almost two years of evidence of how these leaders think. Not critically, but with the collective intellect of a herd of sheep.
I’m one of the smart people.
I follow rules.
Don’t question the experts.
As comedian Bill Maher said on his show “Real Time” last fall about face coverings:
It’s an amulet, you know? A charm people wear around the neck that wards away evil spirits. It means nothing
For the people who see masks as amulets, the virtue signal indoctrination is complete.
Although the masks are “recommended,” don’t think these people are all of a sudden going to become independent thinkers. Don’t assume they will look at the “metrics” and make sound risk assessment decisions.
Don’t assume they will relinquish social control.
Never assume it’s over.
Because the forever maskers are real.
And they are in charge of schools.
For story ideas, article comments/feedback, media inquiries and more, drop note to jon@jonjkerr.com, or @jonjkerr on Twitter.
Spot ON!
Every single day, when I drop off my daughter at school for Kindergarten, I see her principle walking the playground with a mask on, even though the risk outdoors has always been extremely low. I viewed this as a "conditioning tool" to normalize masking for young people, and instill the idea of a High Level of Threat, because it does not make sense based on "SCIENCE".
I am supposed to trust THESE PEOPLE with MY KIDS, even though I have NEVER seen their faces in real life. GIVE ME A BREAK. Their actions PROVE, they have 0 trust for me or the kids. Their actions prove that this is not about health or safety, but an overhaul on how to engage in human to human interaction moving forward.
I REJECT!
Thank you for the read Jon.