“Smile, and let your creases show!”
March 21, 2021
Social distancing, Plexiglas partitions, and masks make it very difficult for people to build rapport with one another, especially in the classroom! Now that many schools are open for in-person learning, teachers are finding it very difficult to build rapport with their students while social distancing and standing or sitting behind Plexiglas partitions. However, it is mask wearing that takes the prize for the biggest barrier to inspiring, making connections, and motivating students effectively. Wearing masks diminishes the power of an educator’s smile to exhibit affirmation, warmth, enthusiasm, encouragement, and applause for a student. So what’s a teacher to do in order to communicate effectively behind these barriers of protection from Covid?
It has been said that only 7% of communication is accomplished through the use of words (verbal communication) and 93% is accomplished through body language (nonverbal communication). Wearing a mask takes away the bottom half of our faces and taps into the nonverbal communication percentage. Therefore, educators must employ various strategies to makes up for the difference once their pearly whites have gone undercover.
A teacher can affirm student performance by clapping, giving “air bumps”, flailing, waving arms, and exaggerating gestures. However, as effective as these forms of nonverbal actions can be, not much is as powerful as what our eyes can communicate.
The sense of sight occupies one third of our brains, far ahead of the sense of hearing with 0.01 percent brain matter occupancy! Most scientists concur that the most important organ of sense is the eye because we perceive up to 80% of all impressions by means of our sight. Sight is the key to knowledge because we cannot understand what we cannot conceptualize. This is true for our spiritual lives as well as our natural lives.
In recent weeks, teachers have been encouraged to use their eyes to smile and to make eye contact with their students. It has been suggested that educators need to hold their eye contact with a student for a couple of seconds, lock in, smile (even though the mouth is masked), and let their creases show. With strong eye contact, and an exaggerated crinkle in our eyes, our students can see our smile! Social distancing, Plexiglas, and facial coverings cannot mask our smiling eyes!
And we wondered about the value of our crow’s feet! Smile, and let your creases show!
The hearing ear and the seeing eye,
the Lord has made them both. –Proverbs 20: 12