I Just Wanted to Teach

When it gets close to winter vacation I try to structure my class periods with my middle school students in a way that keeps them busy and active so we don't stray into the " early Christmas break syndrome".

I entered my classroom Monday and realized that the week was not going to start out in a normal way. My closet door was open which was the first red flag. I quickly learned that our building had been broken into over the week-end. The amazing thing is that my closet was open and nothing was taken and everything was exactly the way I left it Friday.

I just wanted to teach. About the time I figured out that all was intact from the robbery I got a call that we had no water. A line had broken in our little building. That meant no bathroom or sink use. We did okay for about two hours. Then students needed to hike to the main building to use the bathroom. After rotating groups of students for a twenty-minute visit to the other building, it began to cut into the instruction time.

This went on for two days as workers struggled with frozen ground trying to figure out how to fix the leak. I limited my liquids because I knew I would be unable to leave and hike to the main building. The water was fixed on Wednesday right about noon.

When the afternoon class came in again, I just wanted to teach once again. The toilets wouldn't work in my classroom. As the maintenance guy was fixing those, the boys toilet overflowed into the room. New parts needed to be ordered and we still don't have the boys bathroom up and running. The students held together pretty darn well!

It is amazing when you want to keep structure and order plus a little teaching squeezed in how events can get in the way. I hope tomorrow we can end with everything operational!