Power Out, School In

I've complained enough about the last week of school, but I'm not finished. There was some sort of natural disaster. I forget which kind. Honestly, I cannot be bothered this time of year. Every day I walk willingly into a place that contains 1200 humans between the ages of 11 and 14, and I try to get them to write. Oh, and in my spare time, I grade like a kajillion papers a second. You try it. Then see if you care about which disaster has befallen you. Plague, tornado, whatever. All the same to me -- I'm busy! On the plus side: never! Boring!

At the end of the year, we show movies a lot. Except! This morning! Because of this natural disaster, there was no power. No power, no movies. No woman, no cry. (I haven't learned that one yet, either.)

I was required, at some point during this power outage, to remember something. So I went to put it on my calendar. Only there was no calendar. So I tried to find a piece of paper. In my classroom. In a school. And what do you think happened? Do you think I found a piece of paper? How many of you people think yes? Fools!

Oh, ok, technically I did find paper, but it was paper that, for some reason or another, couldn't be written on. Either it was some student's brilliant creation, or it was dripping in coffee or battery acid (don't ask), or it had been lit on fire.

Finally, I dug a bunch of crumpled post it notes out of the paper recycling bin. I don't know who put them there. I think the glue part makes them not recyclable, but I didn't have time for a lesson on what post it notes are made of -- especially since I don't know. Also, a recycling error seemed a minor infraction for a class that was lighting fires.

Having acquired a piece of paper, I next went in search of a writing implement. Like, you know, a pen or a pencil. In my classroom. In a school. Where a pen or a pencil should be! But: no. At the end of the year, we have none. We've run out. It's a budget thing. So I begged my students, and they had none either, having expected to watch movies all day, and therefore begun lighting all the school things on fire.

They had no writing things, but they had many, many chocolates. Prettily wrapped, with cards. I ate some, but it didn't help. I still needed to write something down. Eventually I got the genius idea to write with chalk, on the chalkboard. Crazy notions come upon one when one is desperate. It actually worked quite well. When I was finished, I erased it all and had a clean board again. If we did this chalkboard thing up right, we might be able to get rid of the Promethean board, and then we wouldn't be disturbed by power outages. Also, there would be more money in the budget to buy pencils. Somebody do this thing. It's the wave of the future, I tell you.