Teacher Wears An Iron Man Mask For Sweet Reason

Most of the time, if a college professor wore a mask to class, students would be concerned… if not downright scared. But for the students in one class at Malaysia’s International Islamic University, it’s no big deal to see their professor wearing a mask—and the reason why he does it is winning the entire internet over.

Nazriq Ahmad, who teaches a thinking skills class at the university, went viral on Twitter on Aug. 20 after a student shared a picture of him grading papers while wearing an Iron Man mask.

“My lecturer wears mask to hide his expression so students wouldn’t get nervous when he’s giving marks,” the student explained in a caption.

The internet was clearly touched by Ahmad’s intentions, and the tweet quickly went viral. It’s been shared over 37,000 times and garnered over 50,000 likes and 180 comments. And why not? Ahmad’s move is pretty hilarious, but it’s also a kind thing to do for his stressed-out students.

“It’s really easy to tell if you didn’t score or if you did well based on my face alone,” Ahmad told BuzzFeed after the tweet took off. And he doesn’t mask up only to relax his students, but to introduce a bit of fun into the classroom, too. 

“Classes would be boring if it’s just simply about talking and giving marks,” he told BuzzFeed. “It bored me when I was studying, so I saw no reason to be boring when I took up lecturing.”

Clearly, Ahmad can consider his mission accomplished.

Although now that he’s both a fun lecturer and famous, he’s got a new mission in mind: He wants Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr., to comment on his grading get-up.

“Totally mindblown that this happened,” Ahmad tweeted on Thursday. “God works in mysterious ways. I wonder what [Robert Downey Jr.] would think…”

Let’s hope we get to find out!