Classroom Fast-forward Twenty Years

Wight Session 5 Digital Presentation

My mother is seventy two years old. By day she is a full-time occupational therapist at a nursing home. By night she is a part-time home health occupational therapist.

On the side, she is a Master Gardener working in demonstration gardens, speaking to the

public about gardening issues and attending classes and meetings.

On the other side, she is a clown. She can be hired to twist balloons, face paint and entertain children with silly games and tricks.

She sleeps alternate Thursdays and hangs out with me on the weekends.

So what might I be doing twenty years from now when I am seventy two? If I’m anything like my mom, I’ll be doing something that I love, teaching.

In twenty years from now, the construction at my school will be done and I’ll have snagged the classroom next to mine with the three window mountain view.

I sit next to the three windowsin my motorized scooter, because unlike my mother,my knees are shot. But that's okay because after school I’m stopping by the clinic to get a double knee replacement just in time for the weekend’s marathon.

Pictures of former students and former students’ students plaster the walls next to digital posters displaying current students’ classroom work.

On the wall across from the windows, my aide and I have painted a jungle mural including a waterfall. Below the mural ,the empty computer cart

sits because its ten

laptops with the

latest operating

system and technology

are in front of my

students.

The students are building a cooperative data base with Malaysia, Mali and Mexico. The server never kicks them off or slows down due to the super high speed, free internet. They have headphones with mics and the class in noisy.

All students are well fed, clean and have everything they need . No one has suspicious bruises or rotted teeth or jailed parents.

Next to me sits Jewel. We are reading The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod. We are on book three of five. Actually, I’m doing most of the reading, but if I lose my place, she supplies the word, so I know she’s listening.

Jewel decided she wanted to read instead of working on the collaborative database with her peers because she can take the laptop home, 25 miles out of town, and complete the project there. The entire county is wired, free high speed internet for all.

The bell rings and the class is like whirling autumn leaves in the wind as students scurry to straighten up their work spaces, gather their

belongings

and leave for

the evening.

Jewel places her bookmark and lays the book on my desk. We will read again tomorrow.

Quiet.

As I gaze out the window

watching the last bus leave,

I am grateful. I am doing

what I love, just like my mom.

I am a teacher.