Another new crisis is forming. When dealing with small children, one can’t be too careful. Today will be a bit different from the norm due to raging California wildfires. Here in my little town, we’ve been lucky this year to only experience extreme heat until now. Add dense, choking smoke to the mix, being outside is anything but pleasant.
First for some great news. The school AC system is limping along better than it has the last six weeks I’ve been in my district’s employ. It’s almost cool in the morning when I arrive and the afternoons are not half bad. I’m so thankful to the men that worked so hard to fix the unit, as it is an antique and parts are hard to come by. If you’ve tried to have repairs done lately, you know things aren’t what they used to be, for sure. My students and I are grateful for a cooler room.
The kiddos are coming along in grand fashion. I can read their first names now. There are fewer backward numbers. I usually have 18 sets of eyeballs glued to me during a lesson. Very little tattling and telling. All in all, we’re becoming the family that works together in the Room down the very long hall. Every morning I help them with juice boxes and muffin wrappers. They are responsible and respectful at 6 years old. Now, what teacher could ask for more?
We are just beginning our major computerized testing today. I’m a bit nervous, because these guys are little and I hear that any stray button pushed causes a nightmare. They are removed from the program and it is a lengthy process to get them back in. I plan to test them in small groups. I wish these children didn’t need to take so many computerized tests, but that is the world in which we live. At six, these kids know more about the computer then I will ever live to learn. It’s a miracle that one old lady can capture their attention while reading a chapter book with no pictures. I’ll take that as a win, as well.
As far as our reading material. It was my greatest desire to read CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe just one more time to a group of littles. Selfish, I know, but there is just nothing better than capturing the imagination of students during a read aloud. If you haven’t read the book and like a bit of fantasy, do. The story is about four children that spend some time with a professor in the country side because the war is raging in England. He has a mysterious house with a strange wardrobe. The story goes on from there.
So far, my students are following the story, recalling every main idea the following day. I’m impressed. Reading to them is the best part of my day. With the overhead lights off, a blind cracked for light while sitting on the floor with my class, we all travel to a different land. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t have endured to have taught just one more year. But, as each day passes, I know these classroom experiences will be my last. I need to make this year shine brightly and take lots of memories with me because they’ll need to last the rest of my life.
Picture Day is around the corner. The children know the Pledge and say it proudly every morning. They line up and can walk in a straight line when we need to move from one place to another. Now, it’s time to get into teaching them the finer points of reading, writing and math. Slow and steady will get us to 2nd Grade and beyond now that I have their attention.
Today, the recesses will be inside the hallways of our school. The playground will be an empty space of smoke. School is never cancelled on these days so I’ll be making sure kiddos with asthma are comfortable and quiet.
The smoke reminds me of the times I had to evacuate my home because of fires. For 30 days, an arsonist and his wife terrorized our little community in the foothills below Yosemite. Each day at precisely 4 PM, another plume of smoke would billow up, with helicopters full of water trying to douse the flames. 30 fires in 30 days before they caught the monsters. On two occasions, the fires were set very close to our beautiful mountain home. It’s hard to know what to take when the only space you have is a small car. The monsters went to prison for decades. Only in California, they spent ten years behind bars and then were released for “Good Behavior”.
Arsonists should be helicoptered in to the bowels of New York City, or some other concrete jungle and dropped off on their heads. No one so demented to start a forest fire deserves to ever see another tree or deer again. Yes. The bowels of New York City.
Smoke carries me back to those days. Even though Winterpast isn’t in any path of wildfire, it still upsets the day when our beautiful blue desert skies are heavy with smoke while the sun glows deep reddish-orange at sunrise.
Whatever you do today, have some fun. If you are lucky enough to breathe fresh air, you are lucky enough! Pray for our firefighters and the unluckies that are in harms way.
More tomorrow.