I had a dream last night that I got to my classroom, opened the door and prepared to set things up for the new year. The carpets were clean, countertops shining and all the furniture stacked in the middle of the room awaiting my designer’s touch. This year, maybe I would put the reading table where the loft is over in the corner. I eyed the space and thought it would work perfectly; a corner spot with protection behind me, panoramic view ahead. The children would have their backs to the rest of the class so they could focus solely on whatever gems were coming out of my mouth that morning.
Something seemed weird, though, and it took me a minute to figure it out. The purple painted wooden loft that children loved to play under and on was gone! The second loft was gone, as well. All the beautiful wooden furniture that I’d dragged in to make the classroom more appealing, comfortable and home-like, had been removed. My grandmother’s old dresser with the smooth finish and heavy drawers was gone; my mother’s wooden kitchen set, the overstuffed chairs the kids love to read in and all the cozy couches had been dragged out by the look of the floor. The walls too were bare. Gone were the E-Bayed fabrics from all around the world, the Japanese obi, the African mud cloth and Mexican weavings. I was upset, although the pain was eased a bit by eating ice cream with the “young Elvis” impersonator who appeared on “America’s Got Talent”, a show I admit to watching because there were no documentaries on. Then, as many children’s stories end…I woke up and realized it was all a dream.
While this dream was no doubt spawned by a pastiche of home improvement websites, reality TV, cleaning cabinets out in the classroom that day and planning next spring’s rummage sale, there was a basis in truth for it. We did have a fire inspection during this past school year. Things didn't go well for me. Let's just say my classroom has made it onto a power point presentation. We have been told that in order to abide by fire safety codes we have to get rid of all soft items in the classroom. That would mean couches, pillows, chairs, stuffed animals, curtains, and wall hangings, although nothing was said about the hundreds of pounds of paper stacked in every room and on every shelf. The inspector advised that it would be good for kids to sit on the hard chairs anyway, like he did when he was in school. It would keep them awake. Character built from the butt up, I guess. It was also stated that in most classrooms only 20% of wall surfaces could have paper of any kind on them. That leaves a lot of purple, green and yellow tinted paint showing. Not showing so much would be posters, kids’ work, paintings, drawings, stories and any other thumb tackable items put up to inform or inspire. Children will have to sit on hard, school issued chairs and look at pictures of George Washington, the alphabet strip, and the fire drill route poster. Don't be surprised if things look a little different next year. Oh, one more thing he told us. Absolutely nothing could be hanging from the ceiling. The ceiling patterned with shiny steel water sprinklers, installed at extra cost, so the room would be completely and immediately soaked…
in case of fire.
