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Tuesday, 03 February 2009 | 3 Comments

It’s a new school year. This post, therefore, should be full of optimism and goals. But, please indulge me in a short whine.

It’s hot, ridiculously hot.

My classroom has a wall of windows facing north-east, it gets the full heat of the sun during the day.

The only windows that face outside are on the same wall. Cross breeze is only possible through opening the door on the opposite side of the classroom which faces into a corridor (so you also have to open windows in the corridor), and even then, there’s not really a cross breeze.

There are a couple of problems with opening the windows though.

There are vertical blinds on the windows, with several blinds missing due to breakages. Opening the windows causes the blinds to flap and whack students in the head, so I clip them together which means sunlight enters the room making it hotter.

The other problem with opening the windows is that wasps like to nest outside my classroom. So, once you open the windows, a wasp will occasionally wander into the classroom – pretty much destroying the lesson.

In this poor environment, we expect students to learn.

Posted in • Classroom Management • Just Stuff • Reflection | Short URL: http://mths.co/1371

Comments

Kristen on 03 February 09 at 03:29 PM #

It's the dead of winter here (and we're cold) but I can totally relate. When we start school in August it's hot hot hot for the first several weeks (at least!). We actually had a "heat" day last year when the outside temps were close to 100... and the inside temps probably were, too! Not a great way to start the year. But at least it can only get better! Good luck.

Tim on 08 February 09 at 02:55 AM #

Sounds like something out of a Colin Thiele novel. Do you reckon conditions in classrooms have got worse over the years, or has it always been this bad in Australia?

Simon on 08 February 09 at 04:19 AM #

I can't remember it being as bad at my school, but I can't just put that down to global warming. The high school I attended was built a little wiser than the school I work in. It has large concrete blinds outside the windows, and I think they actually did a good job of keeping the sun and heat out. The school I work at was designed really poorly with north-east facing classrooms with no protection from the sun and no ventilation. Therefore, two problems: 1. no spending to upgrade schools to a modern level 2. no spending on maintenance to fix things like broken blinds.

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Simon Job — eleventh year of teaching maths in a public high school in Western Sydney, Australia.
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