My Corner for Education

If you want to listen to this song, please click on the link below.     

Daniel Powter – Bad Day lyrics

Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on

We had pouring rain on and off all day long. Snow had been longgone in this part of Ontario. A few days ago, spring arrived andalso brought thunder and lightning along. We don’t normally hearthe rain or thunder inside the concrete school building; however,it is a different story when we are out in a portable. A portableis shaped like a trailer box which is supposed to be used as atemporary classroom. Unfortunately, in a city where population ison the rise, portables have become permanent fixtures to manyschools in Ontario. The brand new school in my neighborhood alreadyhas 9 portables in her second year.

Our school is in an older neighborhood where students’ enrollmenthas been declining every year. Since the school was open, we hadthese porta-pad classrooms for ten classes for the last 16 years.Finally, our school got the opportunity to renovate and build newwings to attach to the main building. A large portion of our schoolwas torn down and has been under construction since October2006.

My class is one the nine classes that have to be temporarily placedin portables. I call it “a cottage” because it is like having aclass in the great outdoor. When I open the windows, I can seegreen grass and tall trees in the park. The scenery is very eyes-soothingfor us in the portable. For days like today, I could see the flashes oflightning and the rumbling of thunder all day today. It is too badthat I left school a bit early today and missed the hailstorm. Apparently,the hails, each shaped like a flat rounded coin, came down sosuddenly. I was just on the highway on my way home when I wascaught in the thunderstorm. A hailstorm is rare. I unfortunatelydid not get to see the hails. Can you imagine thousands offlattened ice marbles dropping on top of your roof? How cool isthat! (Of course, it could be dangerous, too.)

Spring is always a rainy season here in Canada. It is wet and damp.That’s why we say, "April showers bring May flowers." Well, we stillhave to wait a while till May though. Today I finally put on myfirst ever rain boots which I bought two days ago. I had neverowned a pair of rain boots before. With the weather like today, Ireally did not have a choice but putting them on.

My problem started with the construction. Our portables aresituated quite far away from the main school building. Whenever thesnow is melting or the rain is gushing down, the pavement betweenour portables and the building creates a perfect “lake”. On top ofthat, the construction trucks and bobcats carry mud everywhere.Whenever kids run through the muddy schoolyard, the water from thisextensive mud puddle splashes on their backs all the way from heelsup to their heads. Their jackets, boots and snow pants are SO messybeyond their control. I say “beyond control” because we adults getmud everywhere on our pants as well. It is so GROSS! The trip tothe office has become so unbearable, and I had ruined my brand newboots through the past winter season. My steam finally let off likea kettle! I can not stand it any longer. From now on until the endof the construction, which seems to be no end in sight, I amgoing to wear my sky blue rubber boots just like the other teachersin the portable zone. We call it our Spring Fashion of 2007.

March Break will be officially over tonight! Back to school tomorrow! To tell the truth, I quite enjoy staying home and doing things that I normally have no time for. This week I simply read and wrote a lot for myself, for fun really. My hubby is very understanding because he always thinks that I work too hard for my job. Yes, I do, but I do enjoy every minute of my time in the classroom. I want my students to have fun learning, and make learning fun as well. Let’s just hope that they are as excited about going back to school as I do. I guess we will find out tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is the day to send them home with their second term report cards. It will be interesting.

I got some spare time to set up my blog this afternoon! I was actually sent home from school early because of a major snow stormarriving this afternoon. I am grateful that my colleagues were ableto spare me for the last half hour, so I could leave early. It tookme more than an hour to get home. The snow storm was wicked when itstarted. I was sitting in the staff room at about 12:55p.m.duringmy lunch break when the snow began to fall. By 1:00, it was comingdown full force with poor visibility and strong wind. My studentswere quite happy to stay in the portable for recess, because wewere building popsicle houses for our structures and stabilityscience unit. We decided to make it a fun day and build houses,because only twelve students showed up for class today. The news ofa snow storm with freezing rain has been broadcasted over thetelevision and radio since last night. The weather was actuallycalm and nice this morning. Our school board cancelled the schoolbuses this morning because they are concerned about the drive homein the afternoon. The part that really irks me is that some of ourstudents don’t come to school whenever the school buses arecancelled. Our school is one of those so called “walking” schools.We don’t even have school buses! We only send students on buseswhen they are on a trip or with broken legs! Most of our studentsfrom kindergarten to grade five live within walking distance, onlyfive to ten minute away. It might be dangerous for buses on theroad due to road condition, but our students should be able to walkto school. I really think that some parents are lacking parentaldiscretion. As a matter of fact, in a typical morning like today,our secretary would be bombarded with phone calls from “concernedparents” to see if the school is open. I always tell my studentsthat if I can drive for one hour to get to work in the snow, theyshould be able to walk five minutes to go to school. The schoolboard may be concerned about the safety of children on buses (orthe liability issues), but they obviously doesn’t care about thesafety of teachers and staff who also have to drive on the sameroad as the buses do. The problem is whenever buses are cancelled,the schools are still open, which means we teachers have to be inschool. That is why a day like today is totally waste of time,because half of the students would be absent and the regularprogram would be interrupted. We ended up had a great day though. Ithink my students love days like today, so we can actually enjoysome creative activities as a small group. As they pointed out, theabsentees “missed out” all the fun things we did, and yes, theydid!