'There's a boat in the middle of my LAB so.." this is how my co-worker starts explaining to me the frustrations he is having with trying to run his biology class. The "marine tech class," come on now, spade is a spade..shop class, didn't get the rented space that they were counting on and so as a result they have reclaimed their old classroom which was turned into a science lab in their short-lived absence. It's a mess, and it's one of so many messes caused by the "small school"=shove lots of kids into an old building, break it up by floors but leave them overcrowded, "solution" offered by the DOE. Other problems include...communal urinals that will leave us all deeply scarred for years to come, desperate measures for teacher privacy including attempts at using bookshelves as room dividers. This is bound to get us all killed or fired as the shelves aren't stable and threaten to come tumbling down any moment now. Did I mention the microwave and coffee pot hidden behing the book shelf as a last ditch attempt at "community" amongst staff or at least a little "break"--mind you this required walling off an entry so that teachers could come in and out of the classroom without distrubing the class that is in progress. Yes, we are completely without space. There is no brilliant solution, unless, as I am convinced some Japanese architects could come in and consult with us on how to Tokyo-ize the school. Beyond this, there is no hope.
Each morning, I have to "reset" the desks from rows to groups of five and then the afternoon teacher has to place them all back into rows again. We have no space for out posters and have hung a clothes line across the window in a vain attempt at finding a spot to hang our reinforcing lessons. It is total madness.
But it's not as bad a having a hlaf constructed boat in the middle of your lab, so I can't really complain now can I?