Being that I'm about to embark on my tenth year at Unnamed Junior High School, I thought it was time for an update.
I've not exactly found my niche just yet here in the edublogosphere, but I'm getting there. I've been introduced to some wonderful teachers and have had several days brightened by the humor on other people's sites.
We don't go back until the 22nd of August, which is still two weeks earlier than it used to be. What happened to summer lasting until Labor Day? Oi. It sure is hot enough right now. Weird muggy weather for Southern California. Awful in my little cottage with no cross ventilation and an 80-year-old landlady who for some reason only known to herself, will not allow me to buy a little air conditioner. And I pay for my gas and electric.
Gawd. Who knows? I just worry about my little doggie boy becoming a little roasted doggie when I'm out. I mean, how many fans can I buy?
At least it's better than the classroom getting hot. It gets up into the 90's on hot days. That's a ridiculous situation. I complained about it two years ago when my room never got below 84 degrees, and was close to 96 for five days. How did they address the problem?
Removed the thermometer, of course.
Tell me, those of you who are going back sooner than I, in warmer climes, how the heck do you teach when the kids are so sweaty that they slide off their plastic chairs? When you feel the perspiration drip all the way down the side of your torso and stop only when it hits your waistband? When the bright blue sky is only a window or doorway away, and yet out of your reach?
Tell me Ms. Spellings, can you do something about the weather?
Because this is one thing over which I have no control. Or are you going to blame me for that too?
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7 comments:
'Way back when I was a little baby teacher in Baltimore County, Maryland, my classroom was horrible every day from afternoon sun through the wall-o-windows that did not open and the 40+ 7th-grade bodies (some ripe from PE class, complete with smelly gym suits on their way home to be washed).
I had them put their heads down and I read Tom Sawyer to them. They were responsible for listening and remembering and discussing, but I couldn't make them do much more -- Poor sweaty little critters.
In Alabama we would not survive without air conditioning. In fact it works so well, that when we return to school on August 10, I will have students decide to bring a jacket for the second day. I can change the temperature a couple of degrees in my room, but not significantly. So, we freeze all day and then go outside in our long sleeves to stifling heat! Then we melt when the heat comes on in the winter. However, the worst is the spring and fall when the weather changes from day to day and the heat is on when we really need AC (or vice versa)! Oh, the joys of teaching!
My classroom was so hot last September that I had the kids do a lot of writing about the heat since I was told that they had to be writing every day no matter what. They wrote all kinds of things about where they would rather be (an ice kingdom in one case), there were poems and songs and stories about far away places with lots of cold Pepsi and free swimming pools. If nothing else, it gave the kids a place to vent their complaints.
I'm lucky, in a way, I guess. I teach on a hallway where the thermostats are inside the classroom midway up each side of the hall. However, the majority of the teachers are menopausal so we freeze, freeze, freeze. We don't have to worry about short, shorts on the girls because by the second day of school they stop wearing them. However, our mandatory foray outside each day after lunch is absolutely unbearable. We are talking heat stroke level and then we retreat to the freezer. The student's first day is August 4th so we will have hot weather through the first of October.
My students complain whenever the temperature rise above or drops below a womb-like 69 degrees.
Florida started Aug. 8. We have air conditioning, though, so it's okay. Plus, we're out for the summer before Memorial Day.
PS--I'm a first year teacher; middle school.
Whaddya mean, you've got mo A/C at home? Yikes!
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