Back to school

It happened, it really happened: I was in a room with fifteen students and it was fine. More than fine, it was festive. I was worried students wouldn't make it through the COVID safety gauntlet or, if they made it, would cower in the corners maximizing their distance from everyone else, but the worries proved unfounded. A few students were awol, and one was still waiting on a COVID test, but fifteen of my nineteen first years were there, and they were raring to go. They barely needed prompting to engage each other. What a happy din!

After the group discussion I met with each of them for 15 minutes and, if at the start I looked like the perky spiffed up Gnarls (above), by the end of it I was wiped out. Part of it, undoubtedly, was the effort of communicating through masks - speaking as well as listening. But it dawned on me that another part was the information overload of all of the students which wasn't masked, all those bodies in space, clothes, bags, shoes, movements... I've always been bemused by the specious specificity of the claim that it's "93% of communication" but I guess I'm intoxicated by the rush of the nonverbal.