Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Just thinking

I have been teaching school for fifteen years now.

That's longer than I have done anything except be married to Kathryn.

Before that I spent eight years in the Navy.


The entire time I have done those things, I have been thinking about how to set up the best summer camp in the world. Not exclusively, just parallel processing.



Today I was standing at the front of my classroom -- and these are good, sweet kids who enjoy the work I assign them to master a valuable skill -- and, looking out the windows on the back wall (west wall) I could see the raggedy-assed gray clouds scudding above the trees. The greens of the trees included that bilious tint from light that had filtered through cloud. I could hear the creak of the windows as the wind tried to push them through the brick wall.


I wanted to breathe deeply, but all I could get was the recycled, processed exhalations of 2200 kids and adults. I wanted to feel the wind tugging at my shirt and pinching my cheeks, but 72 degrees of mechanically-handled air circulated through my small, enclosed world, ignoring the fluctions of sun and shadow. I wanted to celebrate the faint warmth of weakened sun in the blustery wind chill . . . and there I stood in unchanging 72 degrees, short-sleeved in October's sixty-two degrees.

I have to get outside!

1 comment:

bloggerz said...

Holy geez, yes. Pop, here in S. Texas I have a space heater on my desk aimed at my face. I find myself at least once a day shivering because my office is kept so cold...in South Texas. I can actually see waves crashing against the sea wall from my office, but I sit freezing in my polyester wool blend uniform. Go outside Dad.