Our School

In your school, what might prompt spontaneous applause? In ours today, the event was Mr. Schrock's simple comment just before the lunchtime prayer: "We have something to be thankful for." He didn't even name it, but everyone knew that it was raining outside, and that was reason enough to applaud.

The student-led prayer followed, and it included a "Thank you for the rain" sentence.

All day it rained. Mr. Schrock and I stood at the front doors and watched it rain during break. "When was the last time it rained like this?" he asked.

"Several weeks ago we had about six-tenths of an inch during the night, but we couldn't watch it," I answered.

"More recently than that we had that fine misty rain that didn't amount to much," he added. "I remember we had a big rain in June," he went on "because we were gone and I had left my car windows open at home. We had a lot of moisture inside the car."

Among the students a festive spirit prevailed today. Many of them ate lunch on the front porch of the church to celebrate and to watch it rain. The more staid among us decided we could celebrate just as well inside where it was warm and bright and dry.

In the shop, which doubles as a basketball court outside of shop classes, preparations are underway for the MCC Relief Canning Project to commence on Thursday of this week. New lights are being installed, and the students are so glad for the prospect of improved lighting that they didn't complain about missing out on basketball at break. Instead they played Dodge Ball with gusto in the learning center (rolling the ball on the floor), and Six Square in the basement.

Andrew, who has a lot more appreciation for a dark, cave-like studying setting than I do, wanted to crank open the blinds in the typing room. It was too dark and gray, even for him. Best of all, he found a way to make the controller work to move the blinds trapped between two glass panes. I had concluded it was broken and had given up trying to open the blinds to admit more light.

I lit a candle instead of cursing the darkness. (I know. Lame attempt at profundity. Not original at all.)

The darkness almost created an awkward situation for Susanna. I headed through the double doors into the church foyer, and saw a shadowy figure hurrying toward me out of the dark. Much giggling followed when she realized it was me, a teacher, and not a student as she had hoped. She was planning to pull off a big "scare" event. She was one of the frisky "E" privilege students in the library who were staging their very own music event, although quietly, so as not to get their privileges revoked.

It's lovely on a rainy day to be penned up with people you like.

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In our school we started a Friday afternoon activity series last year which involved students selecting an activity to share with the rest of the school. It was to be something that shows everyone something about that "other life" each of them has--the one outside of school. If possible, it would be instructive, and involve teaching others a skill that one student has developed through experience or practice. Students, especially in the same family, could pair up to make their presentations.

Last Friday's activity was a "working cattle" activity that Susanna and Lois demonstrated. Their dad brought over a 300-lb. calf that was being added to their "backgrounding" operation, and the girls were to perform its initiation rites as they are used to doing. A cattle trailer and panel had to substitute for the chute they usually use. They left the back gate open after the calf was fully secured between the sidewall of the trailer and a panel snugged up against it, and the work began in full view of the audience. I confess I hung around the back where my view was partly obstructed. I'm a little more squeamish than I used to be.

Indoors, the girls had showed us all their gear--bottles of vaccines, syringes, an implant tool, ear tags, a dehorning tool, and an elastrator, and explained how each tool was used and what each medication and procedure was supposed to accomplish. That forenoon, Susanna was getting cold feet about part of this explanation, so I helped her word things both clearly and discretely where that seemed especially necessary. When the time came, the girls carried off the explanations and tasks with aplomb.

The antibiotics and the hormone chip went in. The elastration band and the ear tag went on. The horn tips came off. And that was that.

Then we all hurried off to clean up the flower beds around the building and spread the mulch that Larry had brought for that purpose.

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In each of the last two composition classes, I have misspelled something on the chalkboard. Each time, someone called it to my attention, thankfully. I think something about writing things large and on a vertical surface is a little disorienting. That is, the usual "making sure it looks right" mechanisms don't kick in as reliably as they do under more normal writing conditions. Or maybe that's just an excuse. The other day it was simile, and today it was enforcement--and one other word that I can't remember, in which I omitted one whole syllable.

Unfortunately, I think misspellings are a bigger problem for me than they used to be. Occasions one through ninety-nine can go off without a hitch, but occasion 100 prompts a brain freeze, or a blithe unawareness of any problem. It probably doesn't help either that I'm often talking while I'm writing on the board, or I'm thinking about what I need to say next.

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We got our call chain diagram for the school year today--to be used in the event of a weather cancellation. Someone was talking about the possibility of freezing rain by tomorrow. Not a chance, according to the weather site I've been consulting.

When I was on my way home from school tonight, whoever I met driving a pickup near Pleasantview Acadamy didn't need ice on which to do some dramatic sliding maneuvers. I was glad he got things under control before he reached me. He came very close to landing in first the west and then the east ditch, with a crosswise-in-the-road interval in between. I still don't know if he was showing off or demonstrating helplessness. The latter would inspire empathy; the former, disgust. In the absence of certainty, I'll have to hold both emotions suspended.

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The rain had not yet started on my ride to school. As I rounded the Stutzman corner, a loud wail erupted from somewhere in Pleasantview. Unnerving. It sounded like a tornado siren, but it didn't look that stormy. I had never heard this before.

During typing class I found out from my students that what I heard was indeed a tornado siren that is tested on the first Monday of every month. I guess my trip to school had never coincided before with the siren testing time.

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Mr. Schrock kindly warned everyone today not to assume that the snacks that people bring for the canner crowd are meant for student consumption. He made it clear that they are there for people who help with the work. That could be students, he said, but only if they have their school work far enough along to justify spending part of the school day in a "helping mankind" activity. Past experience has shown the wisdom of some preemptive instruction about the snacks.

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The red tulips and grape hyacinths planting idea for the school entrance beds was vetoed. Cost was apparently not the issue.

Where does a person start in explaining the deep satisfaction some of us feel at the sight of a vivid color splash after a gray winter--especially if it can be enjoyed year after year with a very nominal investment of time and money? School is the home away from home for students during most of their waking hours during most of the days of each year. Why not make it a place where they can't help but smile, for several weeks of the year, at least, as they approach and as they leave?

How do you say politely that what looks simple and attractive to one person looks simply boring to another? That's how I view foundation plantings with no variety in color and texture. Nothing dynamic is apparent in such a landscape. Especially if these plantings require regular shearing to maintain the "proper" shape, I think they look intolerably stiff and bland--forced into uncomfortable submission by someone's idea of order--as if it can look good only if it holds perfectly still, maintaining forever the shape artificially forced upon it. Such plants have a place--as a background for more interesting things, or as a foreground for interesting and intricate architecture behind them, but, all by themselves, in front of undistinguished structures, ad infinitum? Spare me.

Maybe I need to ask Susanna to help me figure out how to say this clearly and discretely.