Shannon Costello

There are two audiences in the room on this day, and I have specific things I want to communicate to both. I am limited by rather exact time constraints. My first block class ends at 9:59. My second block class, on the other side of the building, begins at 10:02.

Delay is fatal to classroom management, so I try to arrange things so that my students have something to do almost immediately. My class knows where they should turn their homework in, and I come in with a prepared overhead transparency that I can put up immediately. This transparency may be a quiz (5 questions, to be graded and returned in class) or it may list the homework for the night and a warm-up activity.

My timing may be thrown off by very small events such as a first block student privately asking a question (not a bad thing) or a blown bulb on an overhead projector (near-fatal disaster).

On this day, having successfully maneuvered my cart through the crowded hallways, I arrive at my second block classroom to find 27 students and 10 adults configured in such a way that getting to the front of the room is difficult. Very minor problem. I am not disturbed. But before I can grab my transparency from its folder I discover that the previous teacher, finding transparencies lacking, had written directly on the overhead. Problem! Fortunately I happen to have some tissues. I use them and water from my water bottle to clean the overhead. I am now behind in checking the homework and cover sheets are not yet passed out for the quiz, which means I may still be checking homework as the completed quizzes come in, which means I will be behind in grading them…

Much later in the class I move the projector aside to prepare for an activity. The plastic water bottle falls to the carpet and breaks (believe it or not), leaving a sizeable puddle on the carpet. I pick it up and resume teaching, ignoring the water. Later on I discover that the materials I had prepared for a game have vanished. I shift gears, instructing students to take out a sheet of paper, and charge on.

When class is over and I reach the safety of the 7th grade planning room I collapse, a sizeable puddle of drained teacher slowly staining the cushioned chair.