Don't tread on anyone

I didn’t see them for a month.

When we finally started doing video calls, they were so eager to go back to school, literally begging to have a normal math class again. They wanted to know if things would be normal in the fall.

And like an idiot, I assured them that by fall this would likely be over, because the media had assured us that the pandemic would go away once the warm summer weather set in - after all, that’s what normally happens with cold and flu viruses. Of course we’d be back in-person again. 

Now even when my campus does open up for optional in-person instruction, students will be arriving on campus, walking into a classroom with 9 students and one teacher, sitting down in front of a computer facing a wall, and staying there all day except to go to lunch. They will not have live, in-person class. They’ll be doing the same things as the students who stay home, they just won’t be able to go to the bathroom without asking for permission and will have to wear a mask all day. 

Iranian women share lunch after planting rice. 

Mazandaran Province. Near the village of Zirab. Iran, 2001.