Blogboard

Like many educators, Wockerjabby teaches in four different classrooms each day. But for the first time in her career, she's in a classroom that stays empty after her last period teaching.

so now, one of the most reliable small pleasures of my teaching day is that empty classroom. I can chat with the kids who want to stay a few minutes extra to ask for help or talk about their birthday parties (this was not the case in my cohort, but apparently when you are a girl your sixteenth birthday is a huge deal. like it might as well be your wedding). I can stare out the window if I want to. every day I savor the process of cleaning up the front desk, washing out beakers or peeling apart bits of different-colored clay, separating homework and classwork into neat piles secured with copper paper clips, packing my bins neatly so that everything is in its place. sometimes I sit on top of the slate lab table and just admire the classroom in its state of quiet, half-ordered exhalation.

sanity comes in small helpings, I guess.

(From Wockerjabby.)