Collected Item: “Masks in the Workplace”
Give your story a title.
Masks in the Workplace
What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?
Photograph
Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.
During the summer in the midst of the pandemic, my county in Arizona put a mask order into effect for all adults and children six and older. Having a job in the childcare industry, I had no idea how this order was going to settle with parents who now had to send their children with masks. Going into the beginning of the week, my coworkers and I were unsure about the response we would get from both the children and their parents. Would parents be upset with us about making children wear masks? Would the children be upset about having to wear a mask? Would we have to refuse childcare for those who would not wear one? We were very concerned about what the reactions would be, but to our surprise most families took the mask order very well. On the first day, almost every single parent sent their child with a mask. Knowing this would be a huge adjustment for the kids, although we were very surprised at how well they all did, my coworker and I tried to make wearing a mask as fun and friendly as possible. Every morning we would have music playing, our fun and colorful masks on, and we even had theme days like in the picture above. Wearing a mask didn’t have to be such a weird thing and our goal was to make their experience as fun and normal as possible. We commented on their masks just as we would with their colorful shoes, cool hats, or sparkly lunch boxes. In a time where there was so much uncertainty, we still continued to bring out the fun no matter what, and I think in that way we made all the difference.
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
#ASU, #childcare, #HST485, #maskupAZ
Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)
Jessica Crandell
Give this story a date.
2020-10-15