When worlds collide

Although I'm not last on the list for racist reasons, despite the half-serious insistence of my students, technology comes slowly to my classroom. My current PC was manufactured when Clinton was president (a moment, shall we, for the days when executive branch dicks stirred up interns and not Iran), and if a less-old model really comes my way tomorrow (maybe even with sound!), I won't be sad to see it go. Not that it'll get far. Instead, I'll try to hang on to it for my students, given that it'd actually be an improvement over the antique paperweight posing as tower and monitor that's over on their table. Not that they've been able to use it this year, given that the cable's not run and the outlets are bad, but, you know, it's on the list. As is, or so I'm told, the television that goes at the end of the dangling coaxial cable above my desk, so that my students--the ones who are learning the language, remember, and thus need the visual support--could actually see the announcements instead of smiling ruefully when the secretary directs us to tune to channel 42.

Did I mention it took me five years to get a printer? Ah, well. I do have a phone.


A few years back, when every teacher in the district received one of these high-tech, networked, $300 deals, it was quite the novelty. That's the difference between being employed in the regular grown-up working world and being employed at a school. Not that carrying a piece of paper from one end of building to the other isn't a useful coping strategy in both the corporate and educational spheres, but often one just needs to make a call or be called. Having a phone should be normal, not special, but it took years for some of these supposed educators to become that blasé-- or willing to accept the work that comes with accessibility. I don't get near as many calls from parents as many teachers do, but today I got a call from mine.

My mother, bless her sleep deprived heart, regularly comes over in the morning to get the girl off to school, her parents' schedules being incompatible with the elementary school start time. This morning the dreaded 5th grade homework had seemingly vanished, and no, I did not abscond with it. Instead my absent-minded ten-year old had tucked it away in the most random place ever, but we were hours way from knowing where. The first time Grandma and her charge called to see what I might know or what I'd seen (her report cards were missing, too), it was not much of an interruption. The second and third times, when all I could do was reiterate that it was not in the kitchen or on the stairs but did you look under the laundry on the family room couch and no! I did not put it in my bag and did you call her dad? half my class was more invested than I.

It was quite the saga, if only because no matter how well they know me, I kind of think some of my students half believe I spend all my hours in that dim chamber, awakening only to chant about vocabulary and government and then tutor Algebra in my sleep. That a teacher is a person with a life? Nothing more than a far-fetched rumor. Until a moment like this, when they watch me raise my eyes heavenward and clasp my hands in supplication as the phone stops me short, again. They might not understand every word I say, but then they definitely know I'm a mom.