Saturday, March 6, 2010

Saturday's List- The Best of Trailer High

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about things I hate about going to school in trailers.  These are the good things:

*Kids don't need hall passes any more.

*The trailers have windows!!  In our old building, the windows were right at the ceiling and were only about a foot long.  In order to see out, we had to stand on a chair.  It is so nice to see out during the day.

*Fewer kids ask to use the restroom.  In the old school, they used that as an excuse to be out in the halls.  Now they have to use the bathroom in the classroom. Not near as much fun!

*The kids love using their cell phones on the walks between classes.  This is going to kill them when they are outlawed again in the hallways of the new school.

*Being outside in the fresh air and sunshine between every class is a definite perk.  Even on cold days, the kids just seem to be in a better mood because of all the outdoor time.  In many ways, I feel like the students, on the whole, complain a lot less than they did in the building. They used to complain about petty things.  Now, when things are worse and they have big things to complain about--they don't.

*Long walks and bad weather mean I rarely wear a dress or even nice shoes.  Slacks and jeans with hikers or low heeled shoes are the norm.

*Every classroom has a phone.  For the first 26 years that I taught in the old building, I didn't even have a working intercom.  Having instant access to the office and every other classroom is wonderful!  Too bad it took a tornado to get one!

*When someone enters my classroom, I know it.  It is nearly impossible for someone to sneak in.  Our doors are not quiet.  At times I hate that, but most of the time it is nice to always be aware when an office aide or journalism student enters.

*We are a very relaxed school system these days.  It doesn't do any good to get too uptight about the situation.  Construction is noisy.  There aren't any bells.  We rely entirely on clocks. Teachers have to be pretty flexible.

*The administration seems to try hard to make the situation as enjoyable as possible for the students and the staff.  They plan ways to include a little stress relief from time to time.

Yes, it will be incredible when we can leave our trailers behind and move into our new school.  However, our school climate has changed so much, I'm not sure we'll know how to behave in beautiful new surroundings.  Strange, but our trailer school now seems normal.  I almost forget what our school was like pre-tornado!!

2 comments:

Debbie said...

Treasure the memories of Trailer High. My daughter's school burned down when she was in 6th grade. They used a small building as a make-shift school until the new one could be built. All of the students bonded and grew very close during that period. They really missed the substitute building after they moved into the newly built "big" school.

Gayle said...

Reading this post and reading Debbie's comment gets me to thinking about how adversity can really bring us together.

Hope Baxter is letting you sleep a little more this weekend!