Keep It Classy

This was my classroom...then, on a Wednesday morning, we all received an email that overhead lighting must now be used...due to research.  I have many thoughts and responses to this research, but out of respect to the position that presented this edict, I will refrain...and, instead, will focus on my students and peers and their responses and how my new theme came about, for honestly?  Drinking lemonade is not my favorite drink of choice in December, but lemonade we must make.

While on hall duty, a peer first noticed the email and read it aloud.  Thankfully, I had already heard that this was going to occur, or looking back, I am not so sure how I might had reacted.

I chose to slip into the job mode...not this-is-my-passion mode.  I turned off the lamps and turned on the overhead lights and began to listen to the responses to "What is going on?"  "What?"  "This room is just sad, Mrs. Gillmore."  "I don't even want to be in here anymore."..and on...and on...slipping into a funk that just did not have to be.

For nearly a decade, we had "lived" in this room with lamps, a room where everyone, in all that time, had been so complimentary, except for two, regarding the culture I had created within those four walls (have I mentioned how much of my own money I had spent?!).

On the Friday morning, two days later, while perusing Facebook, I came across a friend's painting of an ornament with a red vintage truck inside it, and the idea was birthed:  we just had to keep on truckin'.  I shared this idea with my husband who, before second hour, had gone to town and purchased the first of a dozen or so trucks he would purchase for my new brightly lit classroom.

As I shared this idea with my classes, they listened intently, for few, if any, liked our current situation, and then the excitement began to grow as several offered to bring cars and to create artwork that could be displayed.  I concluded by explaining that sometime life hands us lemons; then, we have to choose to turn sour or to make lemonade.

That weekend, I painted this...and "trucked" it to class on Monday.  A young lady gave me my first Christmas present...a red truck.  The next morning, a young man was waiting at my door with a "loaner."  Another brought a ziplock full of matchbox cars that his class turned into ornaments and placed on the tree.  Later, I received a text from a teacher friend who lives across the state; she and her sons wanted to donate five trucks to our new theme.  As the season rolled along, I was gifted several objects with the red truck theme.  Love it!

No, I did not have time to re-make my classroom...nor the energy...nor the money...but...I also could not afford to not invest in my students and the culture within our classroom.  Nearly, all my classes are predominantly male, and many of the females (like myself) love the red vintage truck theme...so a win-win!

My favorite lemonade is strawberry lemonade...but...strawberries are out of season...but only for a few short months.  And...frozen strawberries are not bad, at all.

Therefore, in Cafe 16, we have chosen to keep on truckin' and to keep it classy...for I do appreciate the classics!