VACATIONING AT MIDDLE SCHOOL

What do middle school teachers do when they are on vacation?

If they're like me, they visit other middle schools.  That's right; I get out of school to go to other schools.

For example, that ramp I posted the diatribe about the other day?  It's for an elementary school but it's part of a middle school multiplex.  I had to drive all around the middle school to reach the ramp and view it from the middle school parking lot, so that means I actually did visit a middle school.

The real adventure, though, is going to visit one of my brothers and his family.  All I have to hear from them is that I might be able to attend a Curious George event at the local PBS station, and I am all over the visit.  But, my brother, who also teaches middle school, needs to haul some stuff to his classroom.  (Hmmmmm, who does THAT sound like?  GUILTY.)  So, we head to his middle school.

He actually lives across the street from the middle school.  He could spit from the school parking lot and it would land in his driveway.  He has a substantial amount of gear to haul, though, so we drive from his home parking spot to his teacher parking spot.

It takes about ten seconds.

I work in a relatively new facility.  My classroom has drywall, and we are not allowed to hang anything from the walls.  Nothing.  Not one damn thing.  My brother's classroom is older and still has the cinder block walls.  I touch the walls, run my hands over them, and tell him I am jealous.  Oh, to have fire-resistant, bullet-slowing walls again, walls onto which I may hang student work.

I also notice that he is coveting major amounts of supplies.  "Are these for your entire team?" I ask him.  No.  They are all his.  All of it.  Every last marker, pencil, glue stick, and leaf of paper.  He tells me that he has been hoarding supplies for years because sometimes it's impossible to get the stuff restocked.

Looks to me like he held up Staples.

I help him put out books and find homes for paper.  We check out his technology (a television hooked into a computer -- a bit old school but still far more efficient than my useless ENO board, which is a glorified overhead projector that doesn't even function because the pen is broken and the company is defunct).  I do a quick tour of the floor he is on, and I realize that the lockers are much bigger than the lockers in my newer school, and the student bathrooms have something that we do not have at our school: DOORS.

We don't stay too long, perhaps an hour or a little more.  It reminds me of all the things that I still have to do in my own classroom two hundred-plus miles away.  The weather is getting hotter -- it is due to be in the high 90's for the next three days when I return home.  This is when I can one-up my brother.  His school has fans and open windows; my school has conditioned air.  I won't be getting as sweaty as he will during this hot spell. No matter, though.  He can hop home and take a shower (on his lunch break, if need be).  I have to drive almost twenty minutes before I can even think about relaxing.

It's not a contest; it's just observational activity.  After all, what else would middle school teachers do during the long summer break if not drool over what other middle school teachers have and do.  We pack it up then head back to his car, which we take more time to open than it would had we just walked in the first place.

It's okay, though.  S'Mores and sangria will be awaiting us at some point, rewards for time spent in the classroom.