#classroom – Sittin' Ugly Sistahs

Back in 2004 I was teaching AP English IV at Crockett High School. My seniors took their AP Exam in early May. We had studied Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness the weeks before the big exam. I had told them, “This book is only 90 pages long; however, it will be the most challenging book you’ve ever read.”

Some sentences meandered for three quarters of a page, and Conrad smashed the dialogue between different characters into a single paragraph. Conrad helped readers feel the confusion and danger of taking an old steamboat down the Congo River in 1834. The paragraphs were as dense as the jungle, and the characters’ secrets were as dark as their greed. Also, the narrator’s story got more menacing as he got closer to Mr. Kurtz, the ivory merchant he was supposed to take out of the jungle.

While my senior classes endured their 3-hour morning AP exam, I realized that my afternoon classes would be in no shape to study literature that day. My video about free verse poetry and the short story with a surprise ending would hold no one’s interest. Their hands would be tired after writing three literary essays, and their brains would be fried after the exam’s grueling multiple choice section.

During lunchtime I went to the teacher lounge and noticed two large rolls of colored paper in the supply closet – the kind of paper we used to cover bulletin boards or let students make projects with. One roll was green and the other was brown. An idea emerged. I grabbed a box of scissors and a few rolls of masking tape. With ten minutes left of my lunch, I hurried to the art classes downstairs and borrowed a large roll of blue paper and one of black from my favorite art teacher.

She asked, “What are you making?”

I looked at her and smiled. “A jungle!”
Being open-minded, supportive, and cool, she asked no questions and had two art students carry the paper rolls upstairs to my classroom.

My seniors came to class both tired and energized. Some wanted to talk about the AP Exam (which violated the form they had signed to not discuss test details with anyone). Others were hoping for a movie to watch, and maybe one or two came in thinking we might analyze a poem.

I surprised all with, “Today we’re turning our classroom into the Heart of Darkness Jungle!”

First, we brainstormed setting details from Heart of Darkness. They mentioned the Congo River, the steam boat, Krutz’s cabin in the jungle, and the severed heads on poles used to ward off intruders. We decided to use the green, black, and brown paper to make trees and vines to suggest the jungle, the blue for the river, and white to draw the boat and the main characters.

All got into the jungle idea. I told them they had to join a group: Vine Makers, River Workers, Steamboat Builders, and Hut Makers. A few asked if they could make the heads on poles. To receive a 100 for the day’s assignment each student had to help build the jungle and to add a quote from Heart of Darkness. My students worked like large elves on Christmas Eve. Someone even used my computer to blast the song, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” as we worked.

As as an experienced teacher, I’ve had successes some days. Sometimes students really enjoy discussing a thought-provoking story like “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”; or they give star performances of a Hamlet soliloquy; or they cry at the end of Elie Wiesel’s Night. However, so many of my seniors loved building the jungle that the next year I let my sophomores contribute to the jungle by adding details from The Lord of the Flies. One student decided the entrance way needed a waterfall, so people had to push aside the long strips of blue paper as they came to class. Some of my peers told me they’d hate so much chaos and mess in their classroom, but I learned to embrace the wild spirits and high energy of my students.

After a few years of building jungles, I had my coolest teacher buddies (Paul & Janie), who also taught Heart of Darkness, build their own jungles. And the groovy art teacher would visit our classes and give a certificate for “The Best Jungle.” I did not win that certificate, but I did have future students (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors) come to the very first day of school and say, “Hey, Miss, when are we gonna make a jungle in your class?”

Just like everyone in the corporate world wants a corner office with widows, every school teacher wants the perfect classroom. Perfection is of course, according to the individual, but I can guarantee that every teacher wants a classroom with a working thermostat, the correct number of tables and desks, a filing cabinet that locks, and is in close proximity to the restrooms.

My career in education lasted thirty-six years, seven of which were teaching kindergarten. During my seven years in kindergarten, I was lucky enough to have the perfect room two years in a row. Room 102 was the most coveted room of the school and had not even come available until the tenured teacher who inhabited that room finally retired.

Even though I’m pretty sure it was luck, I felt like royalty the minute I found out I would be moving into room 102. It was like Kensington Palace and The Taj Mahal met Clifton Park Elementary School. I felt like the Queen, or at very least, a lottery winner.

As you stood in front of the school, it appeared to be in L shape. My classroom, number 102, was the second room at the beginning of the L. By school standards, it was spacious. My classroom had one whole wall of windows with a wide window sill and bookshelves underneath. The windows looked out onto the front of the building, and we could see the flagpole, and every visitor who parked and walked into the front office. The light coming in from the windows was so fantastic that I rarely had to turn on those loud, garish fluorescent lights.

Room 102 had a wall full of closet storage opposite the bank of windows and shared a boys and girls restroom with classroom 101. Our rooms were close to the cafeteria, easy outside access for fire drills, close to the custodian’s closet for those accidental accidents, and close to the outside door for recess. For a kindergarten teacher this is prime real estate on the boardwalk of life.

I had big plans for room 102 and the huge window sills. During the spring seed unit, I could envision twenty lima bean seeds, planted in Dixie cups, lining the sill. My students would have the tallest sprouts, and every child’s plant would grow with all of the natural light. Spring seed unit would be every child’s favorite, and I would be smug knowing our classroom ruled!

In the fall when the firemen came to teach us ‘stop, drop, and roll,’ we would be the first classroom to see the fire engine pull into the parking lot. In fact, when anyone arrived or left school we could potentially be the first to know.

However, in life there is a yin for every yang, and a pro for every con, and room 102 turned out to be such a contradiction. If room 102 could talk, it would remember the day Mrs. Flintcraft parked her big, peach colored Buick in front of the school to bring her son’s forgotten lunch box. She parked and hopped out of the car and as she walked down the long sidewalk, past the flagpole, and into the building; five other students and I, who were in my reading circle, saw that Mrs. Flintcraft had the back of her yellow, spring dress tucked into her pantyhose, exposing all of her goods, so to speak.

My reading center was a horseshoe shaped table with five chairs.

I glanced at my five ‘readers’ and all of us had wide, surprised eyes.

“Her underwear is showing,” one little girl reported.

“It sure is,” I said. “Maybe I should go tell her.”

And about that time, Mrs. Flintcraft came back out of the front door, down the sidewalk, past the flagpole, to her car with her yellow spring dress untucked.

“I think someone told her,” another student said. And we all got back on task.

The allure of classroom 102 and being close to the front office, wore off pretty fast. I realized the principal liked to pop by with visitors wanting a tour of the school. I would look up during a lesson, and my principal would be standing in the doorway with a school board member or a parent. “Do you mind if we observe for a little while?” he would ask.

“Of course not. Come on in.” I would say, while I silently prayed I could keep my twenty, five-year-olds under some semblance of control.

“Organized chaos!” my principal would say. “Your classroom is so much fun to visit.”

My dream of the superior lima bean plants disappeared one Monday when we arrived at school to find half of the plants had grown too much and toppled over, while the other half burned up because of too much sun. Upon this terrible discovery there were many tears, questions, and meltdowns. The wall of windows turned out to be too much heat for our delicate seeds and we had to start over, which meant planting seeds during the spring farm animal unit. I was losing momentum.

Have I mentioned the ant farm? Let me say that sometimes a five-year-old is not as responsible as we might wish. Sometimes little fingers touch things or move things and do not put them back. Like the top of the ant farm. On our classroom chore list, one item is labeled: Ant Farmer. The Ant Farmer is to check the ant farm every day to make sure everything is running smoothly. No escaping ants, no dying ants, etc. However, one day..

“Teacher!! Come quick! Somebody took the lid off and didn’t put it on all the way. The ants are gone!” my Ant Farmer said.

“Maybe they are sleeping or hiding in the dirt,” I suggested.

“I don’t think so,” another student said. “I see them going out the window. See? Look! Our ants are lining up to go outside!”

My first instinct was to grab the bug spray, but I knew this might be a delicate situation, so we built a suspension bridge out of popsicle sticks and lured the line of ants, or what was left of them, back into their glass farmhouse.

I made a vow to myself that next year I would try a worm farm instead of ants.

That outside door that was so near our classroom became a source of contention. We could hear all the classrooms going out to recess and coming in from recess. At various times during the day, we could hear that heavy, metal door clink shut. It was just a reminder that someone was having recess, and we weren’t.

The huge wall of windows that I loved so much were hard to cover when we were showing a film strip. They were drafty in the winter and smoldering in the spring. And as much as we enjoyed looking out at the comings and goings of the school…they enjoyed looking in on us. Occasionally we would look up to kids waving to us from outside. Or we would see the face of an older sibling pressed flat into the window looking for their brother or sister.

There were good days and bad days in room 102 but by and large I did feel like a rock star for those two years. I was living the dream, challenging young minds, creating a strong foundation for learning, and I had a room with a view. It doesn’t get much better than that.