iDrive

At the junior high, the last thing the teachers do before we leave for the summer is have a quick, informal "check out" meeting with our wonderful principal.

 

I felt pretty well prepared to check out this year, prepped for all of the regular questions.

Yes, my final grades have been verified.

No, I don't have any big plans for the summer.

Yes, I would like to keep my keys.

Yes, I am going to spend way too much time in my classroom during the break.

Yes, I am prepared for the custodians to tease me about that.

Yes, the walls of my classroom are poster-free.

No, there are not any unruly 8th graders locked in the costume cupboard.

Sure, a couple of unruly 8th graders could fit in the costume cupboard, but if we were to put them in the cupboard we would have to get the costumes fumigated because, by this point in the year, most 8th grades smell more than a bit ripe. Etc.

 

But there was one question I wasn't quite prepared for:

Uh, what was that? Do I want to go to Oregon next week? Ummmm... Sure. I hear Portland is very nice this time of year.

 

Actually, the destination was school district in a little area outside of Portland. I was asked to be part of a team (with two other teachers and our very cool assistant principal) to visit several schools in the district. My principal, the superintendent, our tech guy, and a couple of school board members had taken a school tour a few weeks earlier and had been very impressed with that district's use of technology in the classroom.

Impressive was a good word for it. Kids of all ages, and in all classes, used iPods and iPads to do all sorts of amazing things. We had only been observing in the first classroom for about six minutes before I had three lesson plans partway written in my head.

 

The trip could have been a nice way to start the summer break. I got to stay in a very nice hotel room and eat in restaurants that exist outside of my valley.

 

I also got to spend several hours in Powell's Books, an amazing bookstore that takes up a full city block. I can't even begin to tell you how amazing that place is. I thought I was going to hyperventilate when I walked in to floor (not a room, a whole floor!) that housed tens of thousands of kids books. That book store, in and of itself, could have been the highlight of my summer. Maybe the highlight of my year.

 

Did you notice the two could have been's up above?

Yeah, this experience was great, but could have been greater if not for...

The Rental Car.

 

Since I was the only member of our little observation team with a credit card, I got to help out by using said card to secure the rental car we desperately needed for our tour. I didn't mind the using of the credit card part at all. In fact, I was happy to put it to some sort of good, helpful use.

The problem was that, because my name was on the card that was used to secure the car, I had to drive the freaking car. In Portland. That is a problem for several reasons including, but not limited to...

• I am a very bad driver.
•  I am an even worse driver when there are more than three other cars on the road with me.
• There were a lot more than three cars on the road with me in Portland. A heck of a lot more than three.
• No one else in the car with me had any idea where we were supposed to go, so we had to trust the GPS.
•  I lost my ability to trust GPS devices over spring break when my brother's homicidal GPS kept trying to talk us into driving into the Niagara River. You know, the part ABOVE the falls. Recalculating indeed.
• The weather was stormy and I had to drive on very large, very confusing, very congested roadways in blinding, wretched rain.
• I am a very, very bad driver.

 

I mean, I worry about driving on these roads...

 

 So roads like this IN BAD WEATHER... forget about it!

 

 But luckily for me, and the three other folks in my car, and the tens of thousands of people in the cars around us, prayers are answered and we all survived. And I did get to see some awesome educators in action, sleep on fancy pillows, eat in nice restaurants, and buy a few out-of-print books that I have been hunting for. So I guess I should probably consider the trip a success.

 

And I probably will... after the rain-soaked-freeway-themed nightmares  stop, that is.

 

I wonder if therapists take credit cards?