Teaching in the Dark


I feel like I’m sort of getting good at it.  It’s kind of an art form, really.  Not as easy as you might think.  But not as difficult, either.

We’d had trouble with the power going out at school quite a bit this year.  It hasn’t happened for a week now…so with this post I’m probably jinxing it.  But oh well.  I have lost power at least once or twice with each of my 5 classes—which shows you just how many times it’s happened.  Sometimes the power’s only off for 5-10 minutes.  Sometimes the lights flicker on and off at varying shades of brightness for up to an hour.  Once, all power remained off for a solid hour.  (That day classes were called off at lunch time.  And of course right after lunch, all power came back on.) 

Now, none of our classrooms have windows.  So when the power goes out, we have no source of outside light, nor any source of ventilation (because of course the AC turns off when the lights go out).  So, I open both doors to my room.  This lets in a little bit of light from the hallway (which must be on a backup circuit), and the illusion of air movement.  Then, I pull out my cell phone and turn on the flashlight app, using this to illuminate the white board, where I can write notes in place of using my projector as planned.  Students are also allowed to get out cell phones if they have flashlights.  The classroom atmosphere becomes much less formal as the kids move their desks to share one cell phone light between two of them.   I think of ways to shuffle up the lesson, often giving more work-time and saving the more technology-heavy activities for the next period. 

The students, like I am, are getting used to the procedure.  Not even my rowdiest classes scream when the lights go out, now.  (Watch—since I’ve said it, next week they’ll prove me wrong).  In my favorite moment, the lights went out, and in my classroom I heard a unanimous “Shhhhhhhh!” and silence within 30 seconds.  As they waited for me to say something, we heard the chaos from the rooms around us.  I had to congratulate them on their awesome behavior.  One of them volunteered, “We’re in 7th grade now.  We’re so much more mature; in 6th grade we would have screamed.” 

Do you think teaching in the dark is a skill they’ll ask about in my next job interview?  I sort of hope so.  I could tell them all about it.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cambodia: Reflections and Highlights

Image
I was really excited to visit Cambodia for a few days and hit up Angkor Wat and the other temples in the area.  Cambodia felt like my kind of adventure--and I can’t even really say why.  But I was excited.  I was excited for our hotel there--a full-out boutique hotel (not a hostel), with AC, a swimming pool, breakfast included, and airport pick-up for free--which cost us a scant $20 per night.  And we’d read about a lot of great tours we could take with local guides.  Flying in and flying out, this leg of the trip would be a breeze, and hopefully everything would be as cheap as the hotel.   The Mango Rain Boutique Hotel Our flight to Cambodia was unlike any other I’ve ever been on.  There were only about 20 of us on the flight--which would not have been strange, except it was, because we were on a full-size plane that could have seated 200.  The 20 of us were mostly grouped together towards the back of the plane.  Second impressive t...
Read more

DI Globals 2016: A Tale of Two Teams

Image
For the past 3 years, I have acted as a team manager for Destination Imagination at my school in Guatemala, and each year, my team has earned a trip to Global Finals in Knoxville, Tennessee.  This school year, I was blessed to manage the exact same team I had last year—the Aguaguates, the most wonderful group of kids any DI team manager could wish for.  This group, all 7 th graders this year, has everything needed to not only excel at DI, but also make a team manager’s job almost unnecessary.  They have amazing team chemistry, and they understand the importance of teamwork.  They’re crazy creative and hilarious and amazing actors when they get on stage.  They push themselves to improve their performances.  They know what they need to get done for DI, and they create their own practice schedules.  In short, they are a DI dream team, not to mention really, really great people .  This year though, I took one look at the school calendar and deci...
Read more

Yearly Update: The Journey to 30

Image
Over a year has passed since my last “update.”  And the year I was 29, despite the fact that I lived close to home rather than abroad, was anything but boring, so there’s no real reason for the lack of blog posts.   The year I was 29, I survived what may have been my most difficult year of teaching yet.  Many overseas teachers say, “Teaching in the States is so much different than teaching abroad.  You’ll see.  That’s why I went overseas; I’d never go back to teaching in the States.  It’s just...too much.”  Well, they’re not wrong.  I admit, I thought that with five years teaching experience under my belt, my first year in the US, my first year at the high school level, would go rather smoothly.  While in a sense it did (no concerns about the quality of my work from administration or complaints from parents), it was mentally and emotionally very taxing.  Even this year, my 2nd back in the States, I’m still adjusting to and coming t...
Read more