Five Days of History

This adventure involved five days in the same classroom and I was pretty scared because it was an 80% Hispanic school district. I hoped the teacher had planned some Mexican studies, because my experience has been that Spanish-speaking kids don’t want to know about American history.

The main problem with this group was the air conditioning system. As the students flowed in, they created an uproar about it being too cold in the classroom. Some began to adjust the heater. The result was, later in the day I could not get the heater to turn off. More kids in the afternoon started messing about with the system, everyone claiming superior knowledge of the inner workings of the school ventilation system.

By the afternoon, sweat was rolling down my face. We were crammed together in a modular structure, one of those units tacked on to the back of the lot, far away from bathrooms and cafeterias. We had to open all the windows while the fan groaned on, spewing out hot air. It was a hot day outside, but still cooler than in that classroom. The technician only worked Tuesdays and Thursdays and it was Monday.

The maintenance technician came on Tuesday and adjusted the system. He admonished me for letting the kids touch it. “You’re in charge, he kept telling me.” After the system was fixed this blowing noise kept up all day and I didn’t allow anyone to touch the controls. The readout always said 62 degrees before and after the thing got “fixed.”

The fan was going night and day at this point. Early classes complained it was too cold. I am pretty sure it continued to blow all night. The technician only work on the campus two days a week. But any savings the district gained in salaries it lost in utilities. Finally on the third day, I asked one reasonably responsible kid if he could turn it off. And then, the silence was deafening.